Lens include Jane Heap, Sylvia Beach, Jean Cocteau, and Pierre de Massot.”
Abbott was inspired by French photographer Eugène Atget. Abbott convinced the reclusive Atget to be photographed just before he died in 1927. A year later, she purchased his archive of thousands of negatives and prints and traveled to New York, determined to find a publisher for his work. What she found instead was a city undergoing a transformation into a modern metropolis, so abundant with photographic potential that she closed her studio in Paris and moved to New York. She worked in black and white, capturing scenes in sharp detail with no attempt to manipulate what the camera saw— New Yorkers going about their business on a crowded street, shop owners waiting for customers, details of the Brooklyn Bridge, and other architectural accomplishments. Abbott’ s return to New York coincided with the start of the Depression, and, with little money, she was forced to sell some of Atget’ s work to art collector Julien Levy; it wasn’ t until 1968 that MoMA would acquire Atget’ s entire collection from Abbott and Levy.
Success did not come easily for Abbott in a man’ s field. She struggled to secure funding and traction for her work. From 1934 to 1958, she taught photography at the New School of Social Research in New York( now The New School). Lon Wasco studied with Abbott in 1949 and went on to become a master photographer, architect, ceramic artist, and abstract painter. His son, Academy Award ®-winner David Wasco, says his father’ s archive of photographs were taken when Abbott walked the class around Manhattan. That collection now resides at the New York Historical.“ Abbott called my father and his friend‘ the hot shots from New Jersey,’” chuckles Wasco.“ His one regret was that he never photographed her.” In 1935, Abbott secured funding from the Federal Art Project, part of the Works Project Administration, to document the city’ s architectural transformations. She worked on the project until 1939. More than 300 of those photographs became her most famous book, Changing New York. Abbott was in Pittsfield in 1937 when she photographed Laura Bragg, the first female director of an American public museum— the Berkshire Museum. Hanselman presumes that Abbott encountered Bragg when Abbott ' s longtime partner, Elizabeth McCausland, curated an exhibition at the museum. While the Bragg photo is not part of the Clark’ s collection, the exhibit does include photographs of the Berkshire’ s surrounding region, including Albany and Boston, and highlights the character of the Berkshires, or more broadly, the American northeast, that is smaller, more rural New England.“ I see so much of Williamstown in these photos and in the architecture she’ s photographed,” says Hanselman.“ Even if it isn ' t technically Williamstown, it feels incredibly familiar, and these photos taken outside of New York City are a part of her work which is largely understudied.” Of all those I talked to about Abbott, O’ Neal knew her
Berenice Abbott, Penn Station, 1935 – 38, printed 1982, gelatin silver print. Gift of A & M Penn Photography Foundation by Arthur Stephen Penn and Paul Katz, 2007.2.33 Berenice Abbott / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
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