Berenice Abbott's Changing New York

NEW YORK CITY -- In January 1929, after spending eight years in Europe, the young photographer Berenice Abbott returned to the United States and was seized by a "fantastic passion" to photograph New York City, a passion she pursued against great odds for the next ten years.

The resulting "Changing New York" project, funded by the Federal Art project of the WPA and sponsored by the museum, contained 305 photographs that were subsequently given to the museum. One hundred twenty six of these unique vintage prints produced by Abbott will be on exhibition, many for the first time, in "Berenice Abbott's Changing New York, 1935-1939" at the Museum of the City of New York to June 21.

In 1943, when the Federal Art Project disbanded, the "Changing New York" negatives, proof prints, and research files were transferred for permanent safekeeping to the Museum. A careful new study of these materials resulted in the book Berenice Abbott: Changing New York, the Complete WPA Project, written by Bonnie Yochelson and published in November 1997 by the museum and The New Press. The exhibition "Berenice Abbott's Changing New York, 1935-1939," organized by Dr Yochelson, offers many of the book's discoveries and insights about the making of Changing New York.

Abbott's compositional thinking is revealed by juxtaposing prints with copy prints made from rejected negatives. Examples from the research files, which contain historical data, contemporary newspaper clippings, landlord interviews, and diagrams of Abbott's camera angles, amplify the historical and artistic value of the project. At various times, Abbott edited the project, discarding images that from today's aesthetic perspective, are as interesting as those she included; some of the discards, such as her now-famous view of the interior of Pennsylvania Station, are also displayed.

The exhibition is organized in eight geographical sections, mirroring Abbott's own documentary approach to her subject: Wall Street, Lower East Side, Greenwich Village, lower West Side, Middle West Side, Middle East Side, North of 58th Street, and Outer Boroughs.

This format reveals where Abbott drew her principal inspiration for the project - over half of the project depicts sites south of 14th Street in Manhattan - and helps viewers relate the photographs to their own experience of New York. Each of the eight sections opens with a brief explanation of Abbott's geographic and artistic themes and a 1939 map locating her subjects.

Finally, the exhibition includes biographical ephemera - letters, newspaper clippings, invitations, exhibition posters - that document Changing New York as it grew from an impulse in 1929 to a government project and book in 1939. Much of the materials for this section are courtesy of Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc., which owns Abbott's estate.

The exhibit will travel to venues, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., Der Kunstverein, Dusseldorf, and the Musee Carnavalet, Paris. A full schedule of programming is being presented in conjunction with the exhibition by the Museum of the City of New York during the months of March, April, and May.

The museum, on Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, is open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm; Tuesday, 10 am to 2 pm for preregistered groups only; and Sunday, 1 to 5 pm. Admission is free.