Berenice Abbott Photographer

The Realisms of Berenice Abbott provides the first in-depth consideration of the work of photographer Berenice Abbott. Though best known for her 1930s documentary images of New York City, this book examines a broad range of Abbott’s work—including portraits from the 1920s, little known and uncompleted projects from the 1930s, and experimental science photography from the 1950s. It argues that Abbott consistently relied on realism as the theoretical armature for her work, even as her understanding of that term changed over time and in relation to specific historical circumstances. But as Weissman demonstrates, Abbott’s unflinching commitment to "realist" aesthetics led her to develop a critical theory of documentary that recognizes the complexity of representation without excluding or obscuring a connection between art and engagement in the political public sphere. In telling Abbott’s story, The Realisms of Berenice Abbott reveals insights into the politics and social context of documentary production and presents a thoughtful analysis of why documentary remains a compelling artistic strategy today.

The comprehensive biography of the iconic twentieth-century American photographer Berenice Abbott, a trailblazing documentary modernist, author, and inventor. Berenice Abbott is to American photography as Georgia O’Keeffe is to painting or Willa Cather to letters. She was a photographer of astounding innovation and artistry, a pioneer in both her personal and professional life. Abbott’s sixty-year career established her not only as a master of American photography, but also as a teacher, writer, archivist, and inventor. Famously reticent in public, Abbott’s fascinating life has long remained a mystery—until now. In Berenice Abbott: A Life in Photography, author, archivist, and curator Julia Van Haaften brings this iconic public figure to life alongside outlandish, familiar characters from artist Man Ray to cybernetics founder Norbert Wiener. A teenage rebel from Ohio, Abbott escaped first to Greenwich Village and then to Paris—photographing, in Sylvia Beach’s words, "everyone who was anyone." As the Roaring Twenties ended, Abbott returned to New York, where she soon fell in love with art critic Elizabeth McCausland, with whom she would spend thirty years. In the 1930s, Abbott began her best-known work, Changing New York, in which she fearlessly documented the city’s metamorphosis. When warned by an older male supervisor that "nice girls" avoid the Bowery—then Manhattan’s skid row—Abbott shot back, "I’m not a nice girl. I’m a photographer…I go anywhere." This bold, feminist attitude would characterize all Abbott’s accomplishments, including imaging techniques she invented in her influential, space race–era science photography and her tenure as The New School’s first photography teacher. With more than ninety stunning photos, this sweeping, cinematic biography secures Berenice Abbott’s place in the histories of photography and modern art, while framing her incredible accomplishments as a female artist and entrepreneur.

A biography of Berenice Abbott, who was a pioneer in the field of professional photography and is particularly acclaimed for her photographs of the streets and buildings of New York City before they were replaced by skyscrapers during a building boom in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Berenice Abbott en 1925 photographiait ses premiers portraits sur le balcon du studio de Man Ray à Paris. Soixante-cinq ans plus tard, en 1990, elle prenait son dernier portrait dans un bateau sur le lac d'Hebron dans le Maine, à quelques centaines de mètres du chalet dans lequel elle a passé ses dernières années. Abbott réalisait généralement ses portraits parisiens dans son propre studio, d'abord 44, rue du Bac, puis 18, rue Servandoni, mais aussi parfois sur place, au domicile du client, comme son premier portrait de James Joyce. En juin 1926, Jan Sliwinski exposa dans sa galerie des photographies de James Joyce, Jean Cocteau, Sylvia Beach, Marie Laurencin ou André Gide parmi tant d'autres. Les hommes et les femmes photographiés par Berenice Abbott étaient liés - socialement, intellectuellement, artistiquement ou sentimentalement. Elle ne photographiait pas des inconnus, à la différence d'Atget, qu'elle contribua à sortir de l'ombre. Ce livre, conçu par Hank O'Neal, regroupe plus de cent portraits, dont la plupart sont inédits. Les plaques de verre brutes, telles qu'elles sortaient de sa chambre noire, sont présentées avec le recadrage qu'elle souhaitait. Portraits parisiens est un livre rare au service d'une photographe essentielle dans l'art du portrait, de l'architecture ou de la photographie scientifique.

A re-release of an acclaimed volume features definitive images of 1930s New York, in a deluxe edition that features more than three hundred duotones as taken with the support of the WPA's Federal Art Project documenting Depression-era changes throughout the city. Reissue.