About the Exhibition

Berenice Abbott, Penn Station, 1935–38, printed 1982, gelatin silver print. The Clark, gift of A&M Penn Photography Foundation by Arthur Stephen Penn and Paul Katz, 2007.2.33

One hundred years ago, Berenice Abbott took her first photograph. She was a young American in Paris working as an assistant to Man Ray—little did Man Ray know, his assistant would soon come to be one of his greatest rivals, and ultimately one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century.

Berenice, born "Bernice" in Springfield, Ohio in 1898, was an intense and ambitious woman. She moved to Greenwich Village in 1918 and fell in with a crowd of artists and writers who urged her to relocate again in 1921—this time, to Paris.

In Man Ray's studio, she quickly matched his fame as a photographer of the Parisian avant‐garde. After she built her own independent photography business, Abbott once again felt the call of New York City, and returned to the U.S.A. in 1928.

She made the urban landscape her project, culminating in her most well‐known work: Changing New York, published in 1939. Less well‐known, but no less remarkable, are her photos of the broader American Northeast.

In 2007, the Clark received a gift of over 400 Abbott photographs taken over almost all major phases of her career, except for her scientific photography. The negatives were selected by Abbott from her vast archive and printed under her supervision in 1982.

Berenice Abbott's Modern Lens is organized by the Clark Art Institute and curated by Grace Hanselman, curatorial assistant for works on paper.

This exhibition is made possible by Denise Littlefield Sobel.