PechaKucha Summary: Abbott

Berenice Abbott was born in Springfield, Ohio on July 17, 1898. Today, Abbott is best known for her black-and-white photography, capturing the streetlife and architecture of New York City during the 1930s. She died on December 9, 1991.

Abbott started taking photographs in 1923 and began her photography career in Paris. In Paris, she was an assistant of Man Ray. Her work was a series of portraits of well-known artists and literary figures of the 1920s. Abbott was part of the straight photography movement. She believed photography should be unmanipulated in its subject matter and developing process. She claimed, “If a medium is representational by nature of the realistic image formed by a lens, I see no reason why we should stand on our heads to distort that function. On the contrary, we should take hold of that very quality, make use of it, and explore it to the fullest.” Later in her career, Abbott contributed to scientific photography which held these values.

In 1929, Abbott began documenting New York City and worked on her book, Changing New York. Abbott set up a studio in Manhattan and spent the next ten years photographing the city she lived in. Her work provided historical documentation of Manhattan as over half the buildings she photographed are now destroyed.

After her project, Changing New York, Abbott went on an extensive trip to document Route 1 from Maine to Florida and back, resulting in over 2,500 photos. After her trip on Route 1, Abbott underwent a lung operation and was told to move away from New York City due to the city pollution. Abbott went and bought a rundown home in Maine for only $1,000 and lived there until her death in 1991.

Washington Square North, nos. 21-25, Manhattan, Berenice Abbott (1936)

Broad Street looking toward Wall Street, Manhattan, Berenice Abbott (1936)

“El” Second and Third Avenue Lines; Bowery and Division Street, Manhattan, Berenice Abbott (1936)

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