BERENICE ABBOTT

Biography Born in Ohio in 1819. Attended Ohio State University. Study Journalism. She began her own photographic career in 1923 as an apprentice to her friend, Man Ray, in his Paris studio. In 1939, Abbott’s first book, Changing New York was published.

Childhood Her early childhood was unhappy due to her parents divorce. After attending Ohio state University she left the mid west for good. She went to New York city to pursue her career in journalism. She then left to Paris when her journalism career failed. While in Paris she tried to purse a career in sculpting, witch did not flourish. She ran into a Man Ray who was looking for an inexperienced black room assistance. That’s when Berenice Abbott found herself enjoying photography.

Photography While in Pairs Abbott took Portraits, but when she returned to New York In 1929 she began to take Documentary photos using the city as her subject. Abbott was interested in the transformation of New York becoming a modern urban center. “Photography can never grow up if it imitates some other medium,”

André Salmon and Pierre Charbonier, Paris, 1925

Bronja Perlmutter, Paris, 1926

Isamu Noguchi, New York, 1929

Under the El at the Battery, New York, 1932

D&L Slade & Co. Spices, Atlantic Avenue near Piers, Boston, MA, 1934

New york Poultry Shop, East Seventh Street, New York, 1935

Sunday Afternoon, Colliersville, Tennessee, 1935

Columbus Circle, New York, 1936

Madison Square Park, New York, c. 1936

Max Ernst, New York, 1941

Emulation