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Berenice Abbott. Bonnie Yochelson. The New Press, 1997.$60.00, 399pp.
First off, let it be said that Changing New York, Berenice Abbott's
extended study of the buildings of New York in the latter part of the thirties,
edited by Bonnie Yochelson, is a wonderful book. It is a must for anyone
interested in photography, in New York City, in urban history and urban
magic, in the career of a woman artist. It makes one yearn for a full biography
of Abbott (said to be in the works, by Julia van Haaften, Curator of Photographs
at New York Public Library).
Abbott has not been ignored, but neither she personally nor her work
has ever attracted the attention or the public audiences that attended
her more charismatic contemporaries: Walker Evans, Lisette Model, Dorothea
Lange. Yeaars ago I remember going to a huge Walker Evans retrospective
at the Museum of Modern Art and there, at the same time in a much smaller
single gallery, were hanging the portraits of Berenice Abbott. There was
no acknowledgement that the bodies of work of the two artists were comparable.
Berenice Abbott is known for four major accomplishments. In 1927 when
she was young and living and working in Paris, she singlehandedly saved
the entire body of work of Eugene Atget, when he died recognized and appreciated
by only a small circle of select artists. Atget, who took photographs of
the streets and buildings and parks of Paris, is one ofthe most important
photographers in the history of the medium. At the time of his death he
was known for taking photographs to help artists with their paintings.
For decades Abbott took care of the Atget archive, until in 1968 she was
able to sell it to the Museum of Modern Art. In turn,the curators at MOMA
mounted several important exhibits and published landmark catalogues of
the Atget collection. Her second accomplishment is her work in portraiture.
Many of these images are considered the finest portraits taken of their
subjects. Her third accomplishment is the series of elegant, instructive
images of physics phenomena that she took in the sixties while living in
Boston and working with scientists at MIT. And of course, her fourth accomplishment
is her city studies, the subject of this book. Each one of these bodies
of work is a notable contribution to photography.
Abbott's important oevre is divided into three parts: her portraits
of literary and artistic personalities in Europe and America, her photographs
of the buildings of New York, and her photographs of scientific phenomenon,
made in collaboration with a group of scientists at M.I.T. in the sixties.
In each area, her work is of high distinction. Each body of work is separate
and unique. It is unusual that a photographer can be so talented with such
different subject matter. In my opinion, Abbott's talent was enriched by
her long relationship with the equally gifted writer and art critic Elizabeth
McCausland.
Changing New York is the title of Abbott's definitive photographic study
which she did from 1935 to 1939 with support fromthe Works Progress Administration's
Federal Art Project. This book, with the same title, includes all the images
Abbott included in her final cut and exhibitions. The entire group was
actually exhibited in .......
Arranged geographiclly into eight sections,the book Changing New York
includes 307 duotone plates and 113 variant images, line drawings, and
period maps. The divisions: Wall St. Lower East Side, Lower West Side,
Greenwich Village, Middle West Side, Middle East Side, North of 59th St.
and Outer Boroughs are an obvious organizing principle and one that Abbott
followed when taking the pictures. The maps at the front of each section,
with each building and place of the image notated, are indispensable. Yochelson
has written a clear introduction placing this body of work in context.
At the back of the book, she has written a necessary text about Abbott's
choice of images, the fate of the buildings, and the history of New York
in that period. She has also included small reproductions of related images,
e.g. another view of a particular building. The book is very well executed.
The only improvements that come to mind are even more of Yochelson's arcana
on the sites and more biographical material on Abbott.
I have always felt that architectural photography was one of the more
intellectual pursuits undertaken with a camera. ( On the other hand, portraiture
has always seemed instinctive and intuitive. ) There are a million places
to stand and plant your camera, there are hours to wait for the perfect
light on the building. There are endless angles to consider when aiming
the lense. Endless possibilities of what to include, what to suggest by
showing the barest detail. The good news is that the buildings don't blink
or move at the last minute. However, the offending car (and now FEDEX truck)
may be parked for a couple of hours in front of the historic portal of
the building. Abbott's achievement is that this collection has one perfect
image after another.
Many have said that Berenice Abbott learned well from the work of Atget.(
The same has been said of Walker Evans, who often denied he had even seen
Atget's work when he lived in Paris. ) Abbott also worked in 1934 for a
few months with the architectural historian Henry Russell Hitchcock. Her
images capture the excuberance of America, even though they were taken
right in the middle of the Depression. See plate 11, The Flatiron Building
flanked by a building whose entire side is painted with an advertisement
"Cover the earth.for Beauty and Protection Sherwin-Williams Paints."
Or plate 30, Whelan's Drug Store, Eighth Avenue and West 44th St. crammed
with fountain syringes, sunlamps, valentines, and electric toasters.
One of the distinguishing features of Abbott's imagery is the signage
on the buildings she picked to photograph. No standardized lettering, no
corporate look, none of the uniformity we take for granted today. The window
of August Pingpank's barber shop,plate 19, at 413 Bleeker St. in Greenwich
Village has a still life in the window. a sign advertizing that razors
can be ground, and a mysterious sign for perhaps Mary C. Hessic. The same
image includes Abbott's preference for grounding details at the edges of
the frame, in this case a barber pole. Another storefront is emblazoned
with the names of J. F. Mirabella Avvocati italiani and Ben J. Levy. Jacob
Katz. Below them at 165 East 121 St. is the law offices of Flam and Flam
(plate 14) Plate 24 in the Outer Boroughs section shows Fourth Avenue in
Brooklyn with a long fence full of posters advertising Ramona at the Albee
and William Powell and Carole Lombard in My man Godfrey. Abbott includes
two versions of William Goldberg's emporiam at 771 Broadway at East 9th
St., both emblazoned with signs touting two for one sales and felt hats,
one simply a few feet closer to the buildings frontage. (plates 40 and
41)..
In the same way that New York was made for the work of Diane Arbus,
one could say that New York in the thirties was made for Berenice Abbott.
She couldn't resist Flatbush Avenue betwen State Street and Ashland Place,
plate 23, with its incredible wall to wall signs hawking loans, gowns and
veils, garcia grande cigars, 25 cent haircuts, and storage vaults. She
didn't walk by Frank Lava's gunsmith shop at 6 Centre Market Place (plate
29). She didn't always keep her camera on the sidewalk. She knew when to
lug it up the stairs of a nearby building with the perfect vantage point.
Plate 24, Tempo of the City, Fifth Avenue and 44th St. hows a crowd of
mostly women on the sidewalk rushing, a big one story clock in the foreground
dividing the image and anchoring it at the same time. She took the picture
of Columbus Circle from the ninth floor of the General Motors Building
on West 58th St. Taken through the back of a Schenley Rye neon sign mounted
on the seven story New York Journal Building, the image gives the sense
of looking through a magical screen . Abbott likes that play between foreground
and main part of the image (plate 35).
Abbott also liked to look UP and many of her images are of the new office
buildings which were turning up where brownstones had stood. See plate
25, Rockefeller Center with Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas, Fifth Avenue
and West 48th Street. Plate 26, Fortieth Street between Sixth and Seventh
Avenues shows the contrasting scales of the old buildings and the new in
a terrifying way. No funky signage will be decorating those behomeths.
She also looked up at the many new bridges crisscrossing the Manhattan
skyline and appreciated their sculptural qualities. Many stylistic devices
that Abbott used, perhaps learned from Atget, have become part of the photographic
vernacular. Notably, her use of trees, lamposts, to divide the frame and
add interest. In plate 39, Wanamaker's at Fourth Avenue and East 9th Street,
the lampost for East Ninth is smack in the middle of the image. Her juxtaposition
of the old and the new. as in plate 1, 38 Greenwich Street, where laundry
from a tenement huddles up against a hulking new building. Anchoring a
detail at the edge or in the near foreground, forcing the viewer to look
deeper into the image is another technique Abbott used to organize her
images. No doubt about it, if Abbott were working now, she would favor
Flash PIX cds, where the viewer can zone in and magnify the smallest detail.
She would revel in knowing her viewer could find that window with its uneven
shade or the smallest sign advertising fresh raisins.
It should be noted that though Abbott had a feel for the street and
its contradictions, its visual jive, she also knew how to make a serene
and elegant image, almost Hopperesque in its emptiness. See plate 7. Ferries,
Foot of West 23rd St. Only a deep shadow and a lone wagon own the empty
plaza of the Hoboken Ferry, short route to Newark, North Jersey, and sea
shore points. Her man at the automat at 977 Eighth Avenue (plate 34), alone,
no one else in the line, seems isolated, yet breaking up the perfect symmetry
of the pie section.
Abbott's intelligent body of work is well served by this book. One is
made aware of her unfailing sense of composition and subject matter. All
accomplished without grandstanding or the cheap shot. At the same time,
mention should be made that on the world wide web there are numerous of
Abbott's images at the site for the New York Public Library and the site
for the Museum of the City of New York, the publishers of this book.
(elsad@theworld.com)
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