Brooklyn Bridge, Water and Dock Streets, Brooklyn

Berenice Abbott, Brooklyn Bridge, Water and Dock Streets, Brooklyn, 1936, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Evander Childs High School, Bronx, New York through the General Services Administration, 1975.83.10
Copied Berenice Abbott, Brooklyn Bridge, Water and Dock Streets, Brooklyn, 1936, gelatin silver print, sheet: 18 x 14 3⁄8 in. (45.7 x 36.6 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Evander Childs High School, Bronx, New York through the General Services Administration, 1975.83.10

Artwork Details

Title
Brooklyn Bridge, Water and Dock Streets, Brooklyn
Artist
Date
1936
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
sheet: 18 x 14 3⁄8 in. (45.7 x 36.6 cm.)
Credit Line
Transfer from the Evander Childs High School, Bronx, New York through the General Services Administration
Mediums Description
gelatin silver print
Classifications
Subjects
  • Cityscape — street — Dock Street
  • Architecture — bridge — Brooklyn Bridge
  • Cityscape — street — Water Street
  • Cityscape — New York — New York
  • Architecture — industry
  • Cityscape — New York — Brooklyn
  • New Deal — Works Progress Administration, Federal Art Project — New York
Object Number
1975.83.10
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1975.83.10

Artwork Description

Berenice Abbott returned home in 1929 after nearly eight years abroad and found herself fascinated by the rapid growth of New York City. She saw the city as bristling with new buildings and structures that seem to her as solid and as permanent as a mountain range. Aiming to capture “the past jostling the present,” Abbott spent the next five years on a project she called Changing New York.
In Brooklyn Bridge, Water and Dock Streets, Brooklyn, Abbott presented a century of history in a single image. The Brooklyn Bridge, once a marvel of modern engineering, seems dark and heavy compared with the skeletal structure beneath it. The construction site at center suggests the never-ending cycle of death and regeneration. And the Manhattan skyline, veiled and weightless, hangs just out of reach, its shape accommodating the ambitious spirit of American modernism.


A Democracy of Images: Photographs from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2013