The Early Life of Berenice Abbott
Berenice Abbott, born July 17, 1898 in Springfield Ohio, was the youngest of four children. Her parents divorced quite quickly after her birth, so she grew up independent and on her own. Like many of us, she started out with a clear idea of what her passion was in life, only to later on realise one needs to know thy self before choosing your destiny.
She knew what she wanted to pursue as a career, surprisingly it’s not photography ... not yet, but rather the art of journalism (Abbott, B. and Van Haaften, J. 1997). Reminder to self that life experience and self-discovery is the way to go before deciding on a singular passion and making it the be all and end all.
The mid-19th century saw photography as an "objective representation of reality" as Beth Saunders (PhD) writes in her article, Nineteenth-Century Photography, on the history of photography. Berenice Abbott highlighted this objective approach, as we later discover in her photography, but I'm adding this here as I believe her photography directly correlates to her journalism, as journalism pinpoints reality and discovers the intentions behind actions taken and sorts out the misinformation to find truth (well, that's good journalism). Saunders also notes that photography was mostly designed as a way to document life, and like the art nouveau, art deco, or expressionism paintings of the 1920s, photography reflected the times, communicating socially while adding its own experimentation and artistic flare (Saunders, 2024).
It is your job to make photographs, let the future look at them.
—Berenice Abbott, 1936
Where To Next, Berenice Abbott?
Abbott ended up at the Ohio State University in Columbus by 19 years old to study journalism. Only to soon find out that was not what she wanted to do. This feeling of being in the wrong place was furthered when she met Sue Jenkins in the wonderful bohemia Greenwich village with her husband-to-be, director Jimmy Light. They invited her to work on Provincetown Playhouse, but moreover they showed her a new way of artistic living (Abbott, B. and Van Haaften, J. 1997). Perhaps it was the creative integrity that seemed to emanate from every corner of Greenwich Village (as one can see in the photos below), but something deeply creative begin to stir within Abbott's heart.
Aesthetic beauty does inspire the soul!
Here's a tip if you are feeling uninspired.
ARTIST TIP - Question your creative integrity. You could start by examining your household and fashion aesthetic. Money status should not convey your aesthetic - artistic style doesn’t scream "GUCCI!" It should make others curious about your mysterious outfit and that scavenged jacket with deep, deep pockets for all one's notebooks, pens, and other items to document creative inspiration when it randomly floods the brain. The household doesn’t need to be flashy or vintage (because that can be expensive), rather place your furniture and items in ways that catch the sunlight, cast a shadow, dash colour on the stark and empty spaces ... More on this in my upcoming blog titled, "Welcome Creative Life - Goodbye Artist Block."
So, Abbott returns to Columbia University to practically end her degree! She was there for one week then cut it off completely and supported herself. Working random jobs, she became the waitress, a model, a helped in theatre houses, all for the next three years. Eventually, she took up sculpting, considering that she had found her new true passion and career pathway. Artists such as Barnes and Crowley, helped bring her into the world of the Avant Garde, which inspired and delivered a whole new perspective for Abbott (Abbott, B. and Van Haaften, J. 1997).
Berenice Abbott and the Man
The Oxford Dictionary defines Avant-Garde as a "Term used in the arts to denote those who make a radical departure from tradition (Fr. ‘vanguard’)" or the French meaning is the advanced guard, describing someone ahead of their time in politics, ideas, and the arts, similar to Dadaism.
Around the time of Abbott's Greenwich Village escapades is when she met one of the most crucial people in her life. Man Ray was introduced to her through Marcel Duchamp, who had commissioned her to cast a chess set. Now these two Dada artists go down in history for their weight in Dadaism. The Dada movement came about in early 20th-century art, literature, music, and film as a response to The Great War. The movement went against accepted ideas of what is beautiful or good art and used humour and the absurd to create new concepts, revealing the underbelly and the purposefully hidden subjects that society deem taboo (Trachtman, 2006).
To give a bit of an insight on who she was dealing with, Man Ray was the only American to truly dive into the art of Dada, completely on his own lane! But this isn’t about Man Ray, that's another article. This is about the realist, Berenice Abbott, finding what was destined for her, and little did she know she’d go down in history as one of the greatest, most pivotal, photographers to have ever lived (Abbott, B. and Van Haaften, J. 1997).
Hmmm, I Think I'm Noticing a Pattern
The year is 1921. The Great War is over. France is flourishing in creativity, summoning writers, painters and artists from across the world. Abbott hears the call echoing between the New York city buildings and down the bustling pavement. The call is answered!
When Abbott arrives, she realises how limited her French is and acknowledges the fact she has no connections. She spends her time working odd jobs as she did in America while she studies sculpture. She finds some American artists and French artists who speak English, and this helped her in creating sculptures, but no success followed her in that pursuit. By 1923, she abandoned all and left for Berlin.
Abbott arrives in Berlin, but her German is limited, and she has no connections and spends her time working odd jobs while she studies sculpture. But it all falls apart and success remains unmet (Abbott, B. and Van Haaften, J. 1997).
Photography, the New Medium
Back to France she goes and resumes her artistic acquaintances. Something seems to change within Abbott. The year is 1925 when she comes across a new medium, or should I say a newfound love, called, photography. From holding the camera and taking the portrait, to producing stills in the dark room, she begins to rise in the artist community for she was exceptional behind the lens, making statements with this new art form (Abbott, B. and Van Haaften, J. 1997).
The portraits you see below come at a bit of a cost! As you'll come to discover in the next paragraph, Abbott fought for the studio space and equipment.
Van Haaften writes that the art community were a bunch of modernism devotees. Within that circle, who should appear but the Dadaist himself. Man Ray was now supporting himself with a prosperous portrait studio.
Now he was on the lookout for an assistant in the darkroom ... But an assistant who knew nothing about photography!
Abbott challenged him to take her on and he ended up folding.
When working as the assistant, she knew instinctively what to do, developing a good eye and judgement for photographs.
Abbott's process evolved, and soon her photography rivalled Man Ray's work. Thus, it was time for her to move out and make her own way.
In 1926, just one year later with the help of art patron Guggenheim, she set up her own studio. Two years later, Abbott exhibited in the first Salon des independants de photographie with Man Ray and other artists friends (Abbott, B. and Van Haaften, J. 1997). This is the kickstart into the world of photography, a world that kept on circulating her and pulling her into its centre. Seemingly all who viewed her intellectual and realistic photographs supported and lifted her up, especially in the lesbian community. The following quote is taken from Berenice Abbott: Portraits of women, 1925–1930, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art:
Corinne wrote in 1982, in the “Lesbian Cultural Center” of 1920s Paris, “[m]any women who chose not to relate romantically to men and who could afford to commission portraits of themselves chose Abbott as their primary image maker. Her portraits of women in general and lesbians in particular offer us vivid material from which to develop a woman centered aesthetic.”
Abbott said, “If it is to be artfully honest and direct it should be related to the pulse of the times, the pulse of today” this was Abbott’s mission in life, and this message is what others sort of her work, uniquely provided information through elegant photographs of realism. Photographs that deliver subtlety into the straightforward approach to life (Abbott, B. and Van Haaften, J. 1997)
“Let us first say what photography is not. A photograph is not a painting, a poem, a symphony, a dance. It is not just a pretty picture, not an exercise in contortionist techniques and sheer print quality. It is or should be a significant document, a penetrating statement, which can be described in a very simple term—selectivity” (Abbott, B. and Van Haaften, J. 1997).
The Master of Aperture: Berenice Abbott
A nod to Aperture Masters of Photography, 1997 by Abbott, B. and Van Haaften, J,
A beautiful influence in Abbott's work was Parisian photographer, Atget, who she admired so much that she diligently organised all his work to be published in France and America and by 1964, she published The World of Atget. Abbott extols his realism works and it was his works that inspired her to create an independent vision of her own.
So, by 1929, back to New York she returns and is thoroughly excited by the fast-paced city, and the love of the place reminded her that this is her home. Thusly, she settles all affairs in Paris and brings her studio to America.
It was being away from America, from her homeland, from her place of birth and of loss and of self-discovery, that she finds her true vision by simply being drawn in to the simple things and capturing their existence in their reality. But she does not realise this yet for all the while she's taking photos, using a simple little camera as a sketchpad for location points to get her portraits business underway, she is creating her legacy.
Abbott used an 8 by 10-inch view camera for her entire career declaring that this camera captured ‘swift surfaces’ of the city, as she aimed to capture its ever-changing state of advancements while she hunted for the new location spots.
It was as if Abbott's destiny was not to have portraiture as her centrepiece as just before 1933, she had arranged for a grant for the studio, but the Great Depression swept through. All funding was rejected even despite her reputation and success.
But it was her project, “Changing New York” on that 8x10 inch view camera that commenced her path forward as a photographer to go down in history. The project was hosted in 1930 at the Museum of Modern Art and by 1932 displayed in the Museum of the city of New York, which hosted her first solo exhibition in 1934. By 1935, Abbott intelligently sort the New York Federal Art Project Office to carry out her project, Changing New York amidst the darkest of the deep depression.
“To photograph New York City means to seek to catch in the sensitive and delicate photographic emulsion the spirit of the metropolis,” expressed Abbott. She goes on to describe New York's spirit and how one's expression can be stablished in the following quote.
“While remaining true to the essential fact its [New York’s] hurrying tempo, its congested streets, the past jostling the present, the tempo of the metropolis is not of eternity nor even time but of the vanishing instant. Especially then has such a record a peculiarly documentary, as well as artistic, significance. All work that can salvage from oblivion the memorials of the metropolis will have value.”
Everything is exactly in its right place and every event is purposeful. There is no mistakes at the core of it all. If Abbott had not of tried and tried again at sculpture, moving from country to country and failing at best, then would she have found such a glorious love for photography?
In Closing
In her origin story, perhaps the divorce of her parents in the separateness of her siblings paved out a mindset of honesty and truth and to see reality clearly. In some instances with such loss, people may develop rose-coloured glasses but for Abbott it was to see reality in its truest and most honest form that cured all.
Abbott started off with an unpromising journey through America which led her to assume artistic success in the blossoming artistic country of France and then of Berlin. Once she had returned back to America it was as if she was given brand new eyes and the fuel from her experiences that excelled her into seeing New York City and its changing monopolist as an expression of the future.
If it had not been for Abbott’s pursuit in finding location spot shoots for her portrait studio and using her camera to make geographical notes around New York into Manhattan Island, then we would not have the incredible project Changing New York that inspired many artists to follow. Changing New York catapulted Berenice Abbott to be an aperture Master of Photography.
I believe, life is too finite and too complicated to worry because in a paradox in the simple notion of the everyday, you work the stepping stones for your destiny as you go about your life, so you never know but you might actually be working on your legacy in this very moment!
Reference List
Abbott, B. and Van Haaften, J. (1997) Berenice Abbott. Cologne Germany, NY, N.Y.: Könemann ; Aperture Foundation.
Abbaspour, M. (2014) Berenice Abbott | moma, MOMA. Available at: https://www.moma.org/artists/41 (Accessed: 09 July 2024).
Berenice Abbott: Portraits of women, 1925–1930, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Available at: https://museum.cornell.edu/exhibition/berenice-abbott-portraits-of-women-1925-1930/ (Accessed: 09 July 2024).
Man Ray (2024) Encyclopædia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Man-Ray (Accessed: 08 July 2024).
Sadof, K.D. (2017) ‘Everybody was a dandy then.’ These portraits of celebrities in 1920s Paris launched Berenice Abbott’s career., Washington Post. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2017/03/02/everybody-was-a-dandy-then-these-portraits-of-celebrities-in-1920s-paris-launched-berenice-abbotts-career/ (Accessed: 09 July 2024).
Saunders, B. (2024) Nineteenth-century photography, Nineteenth-Century Photography | Art History Teaching Resources. Available at: https://arthistoryteachingresources.org/lessons/nineteenth-century-photography/ (Accessed: 07 July 2024).
Trachtman, P. (2006) ‘A Brief History of Dada’, Smithsonian Magazine.
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