Berenice Abbott

Photographer Berenice Abbott is really the equal of Helen Levitt in her appreciation of the squalor and beauty of urban life. But whereas Levitt tended to point her camera straight ahead -- to what the people were doing on the sidewalk, on porches, in windowsills -- Abbott tended to point her camera skyward, to the buildings and the landscapes beyond. If she ever pointed her camera straight ahead, she tended to clear people out of the way. Even though most of Abbott’s pictures of New York City date from the 1920’s and 30’s, I didn’t feel any nostalgia looking at them. She was clearly on the lookout for beauty and grandeur, and as far as I can tell there’s very little “social message” hidden in her brilliantly geometric compositions. In a way, it was kinda outrageous to delete politics from such photos during the Great Depression, but I suppose it’s because she knew in the end that politics can be exhausting and time-specific. If the city could be a depopulated Platonic ideal, Abbott documented it. I love it, and I find her photographs to be more “sublime” (in the Ruskin sense of the word) than a wheelbarrow full of Ansel Adams photos of mountains and trees.

For those who want to see more of what I’m talking about, the New York Public Library has created an excellent virtual exhibit.

Berenice Abbott page by m.a.d. 06.15.2001