Portland Public Library

Berenice Abbott, a life in photography, Julia Van Haaften

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 493-607) and index

individual biography

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Berenice Abbott

bibliography

988280145

Julia Van Haaften

a life in photography

"Berenice Abbott is to American photography as Georgia O'Keeffe is to painting or Willa Cather to letters. She was a photographer of astounding innovation and artistry, a pioneer in both her personal and professional life. Abbott's sixty-year career established her not only as a master of American photography, but also as a teacher, writer, archivist, and inventor. Famously reticent in public, Abbott's fascinating life has long remained a mystery--until now. In Berenice Abbott: A Life in Photography, author, archivist, and curator Julia Van Haaften brings this iconic public figure to life alongside outlandish, familiar characters from artist Man Ray to cybernetics founder Norbert Wiener. A teenage rebel from Ohio, Abbott escaped first to Greenwich Village and then to Paris--photographing, in Sylvia Beach's words, "everyone who was anyone." As the Roaring Twenties ended, Abbott returned to New York, where she soon fell in love with art critic Elizabeth McCausland, with whom she would spend thirty years. In the 1930s, Abbott began her best-known work, Changing New York, in which she fearlessly documented the city's metamorphosis. When warned by an older male supervisor that "nice girls" avoid the Bowery--then Manhattan's skid row--Abbott shot back, "I'm not a nice girl. I'm a photographer...I go anywhere." This bold, feminist attitude would characterize all Abbott's accomplishments, including imaging techniques she invented in her influential, space race-era science photography and her tenure as The New School's first photography teacher. With more than ninety stunning photos, this sweeping, cinematic biography secures Berenice Abbott's place in the histories of photography and modern art, while framing her incredible accomplishments as a female artist and entrepreneur." -- Publisher's description

Big lie all my life : Ohio (1898-1918) -- Center of everything : Greenwich Village (1918-21) -- Blazing chisels : Paris and Berlin (1921-23) -- Why not me? : Paris (1923-26) -- Sexless bird catcher : Paris (1926-29) -- Shock of recognition : Atget, Balzac of the camera : Paris (1925-28) -- No scruples : New York (1929-30) -- Realizing New York : New York City (1930-32) -- Realizing America : New York and Eastern seaboard (1933-34) -- Fantastic passion : New York (1934-36) -- Creative documentary : New York (1936-37) -- Friendly interpreter : New York, California, Chicago (1939-51) -- Photography community : New York (1937-58) -- House of photography : New York (1946-59) -- Photo league : New York (1932-55) -- It has to walk alone : Aspen and New York (1951-54) -- Little old America : Florida and Maine (1954-58) -- PSSC : Cambridge and Maine (1958-60) -- Elizabeth : New York and Maine (1945-65) -- Sell Atget! : New York and Maine (1956-68) -- Hotcakes : New York and Maine (1962-75) -- Barrelhouse girl : New York and Maine (1975-83) -- Epilogue : Maine (1984-92)