Queensboro Bridge, Long Island City, Queens
Artist:
Berenice Abbott
(American, 1898-1991)
Date: May 25, 1937
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions:
8 × 10 in. (20.3 × 25.4 cm)
Credit Line: San Antonio Museum of Art, purchased with funds from the Hearst Foundation
Object number: 76.100.3
Markings: Stamped verso: FEDERAL ART PROJECT "Changing New York" PHOTOGRAPHS BY BERENICE ABBOTT, DUPLICATE
Copyright: © Estate of Berenice Abbott
Inscribed: Verso: Title: Queensboro Bridge: II, Place: Long Island City, Queens, Angle of View: Looking southwest from pier at 41st Road, Date: May 25, 1937, Neg #: 2x3, Code: II.A.x.b
Label Text
Berenice Abbott’s straightforward, dynamic depiction of the Queensboro Bridge captures the energy of 1930s New York with strong contrasts and dramatic angles. A Midwesterner who came to New York in 1918, Abbott moved to Paris in 1921 and became a darkroom assistant for the American Surrealist Man Ray, soon achieving fame for her own photographs of artists and Modernist writers such as James Joyce. Inspired by Eugéne Atget’s (French, 1857–1927) photographs of medieval neighborhoods of Paris razed and transformed by the modernization campaign known as Haussmannization, Abbott returned to New York in 1929 and embraced the city as her most enduring subject. With the financial support of the Federal Art Project, she created more than 300 photographs that were later published as a book, Berenice Abbott: Changing New York. Organized in eight geographic sections, many of her iconic photographs of New York—along with line drawings, period maps, and background essays—present a time capsule of urban design. (Suzanne Weaver, 2018)
Not on view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
