Art In Action: The Works Of The WPA- Bernenice Abbott
By DARLA MCCAMMON
Lakeland Art Association
Exceptional photography is often included in “the arts.” During the WPA days, a job was offered to one such extraordinary photographer named Berenice Abbott.
Abbott, born in 1898 in Springfield Ohio became, much like Ansel Adams, famous for her black and white photography. Adams was known for landscapes and the west, Abbott for cityscapes, predominately New York City Architecture.
Abbot made friends at Ohio State University and moved with them in 1918 to Greenwich Village where she lived in what some might call a communal apartment. Her beginnings were indecisive with pursuits into philosophy, literature, theater and sculpture before she became enamored of an area that would “stick”-photography.
She was hired as a darkroom assistant at Man Ray’s portrait studio in Montparnasse following her venture to Europe to study sculpture in Paris and Berlin. She was fascinated and wrote, “I took to photography like a duck to water. I never wanted to do anything else.” She worked under this tutelage for a time then opened her own portraiture studios in Berlin and Paris.
Her portraits were considered unusual and successful but in 1925 she discovered work by Eugene Atget and eventually published a book on his behalf that gained him international recognition after his death. Returning to New York, she became swayed to use a large format camera and begin photographing New York City in the style she had most admired in Atget.
Abbott worked about six years trying to get financial support and resorting to independent efforts with commercial work and teaching. In 1935 she was hired by the Federal Art Project as a project supervisor for her “Changing New York” photographic project. This was quite a boon because she now had assistants to help her with field work or office work as needed.
She worked in this capacity for over four years and this work was acquired by the Museum of the City of New York. Over 305 photographs encapsulated the microcosms that made up the city, from the squalor pictured in her “Encampment of the Unemployed” to her amazing lofty Pennsylvania Station to the Automat in Manhattan, she captured the essence of the city.
Abbott believed in straight photography and joined a group that stressed the importance of photographs being unmanipulated in either the subject matter or in the process of developing the work. Today’s digital manipulation techniques might have annoyed her a great deal.
Abbott built many credentials, doing scientific work, more architectural works, and in later years she traveled from Florida to Maine and took over 2500 photographs. Abbot developed health issues including a lung operation and moved to Maine along the river where she died in 1991. Abbott’s last book was A Portrait of Maine.
Upcoming and Current Events:
- Visit the Warsaw City Hall Gallery. Free admission daily 8 a.m to 4:30 p.m. weekdays. This is a great exhibit by Teresa Smith.
- Contact Paula Bowman at Latte Lounge to participate in her next “Caffeine and Canvas” event. This fun adventure in painting continues to be very popular and successful.
More info on LAA can be found at www.lakelandartassociation.org or on Facebook. Also call (574) 594-9950. Contact your author/artist Darla McCammon at [email protected].