Berenice Abbott, one of early Modernism’s most seminal female photographers and chronicler of New York, is being celebrated this summer – in Berlin.Martin-Gropius-Bau’s exhibition of 80 photographs provides insights into various stages of the illustrious life and career of Abbott (1898-1991).The Ohio-born photographer originally studied journalism, lived and worked in New York as a sculptor for a while, with author Djuna Barnes as a flat mate, before relocating to Paris in the early 1920s, where she partied with the young and bustling avant-garde.A chance encounter with Man Ray, whom she had met earlier in New York and who had moved to France like her, marked the beginning of her career as a photographer. Abbott became his assistant and discovered her passion for the then still relatively new medium. She also met Eugène Atget, whose pioneering documentary photographs of old Paris she greatly admired and later helped promote through various publications – after her return to the US in the late 1920s they would be the inspiration for her iconic “Changing New York” series.Abbott’s stunning portrayal of the city, then in a state of profound transition, is prominently featured in the Berlin exhibition. Documenting New York’s material culture and urban environments — the old as well as the new that was built in its place — Abbott created one of the most ambitious city documentations in the history of photography.Next to these exquisite architecture photographs and cityscapes, the Berlin show also highlights Abbott’s achievements in portrait photography, featuring contemporaries from Edward Hopper and James Joyce to Jean Cocteau, and Sylvia Beach, as well as her later shift to scientific motifs after she became an editor for “Science Illustrated”. With its concurrent exhibition of the works of German photographer and Bernd and Hilla Becher student Thomas Struth, whose portrayals of scientific and artificially created environments show a strong connection to Abbott’s legacy, the museum also initiates an enticing dialogue between two very different yet surprisingly like-minded photographers and their eras.“Berenice Abbott. Photographs” runs through October 3, 2016 at Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. Click here for more info.
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