Picturing New York

Enjoy this photograph by Berenice Abbott from the Smithsonian American Art Museum Photography Collection

From 1935 to 1939, [Berenice Abbott] did nothing but photograph the city [of New York] in all its aspects, recording its many faces during a time of rapid change. Though she started this work during the Depression, she managed to convince the WPA's Federal Art Project to not only grant her the commission but also provide her with several assistants to help her.…

This was certainly the peak of the work that she did with the camera.… She made hundreds of photographs of the city, from its sublime skyscrapers to its row houses and tenements. Insisting on the highest quality, she used a large-format camera that produced eight-by-ten-inch negatives capable of recording the small smallest detail and did all the photographic processing herself. Abbott's New York photographs were published in the book Changing New York (1939), with text by Elizabeth McCausland.

Source: Beaumont Newhall, "Berenice Abbott, 1898–1991." American Art, vol. 6: Winter 1992, pp. 111–12.

Pictured: Berenice Abbott, 1898–1991, "El" Second and Third Avenue Lines; Bowery and Division Street, Manhattan, from the series Changing New York, 1936, gelatin silver print on paper, 9 9/16 x 7 7/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of George McNeil.