Focus | Berenice Abbott: Exposition online

The group exhibition The Forms of Water is a chance to rediscover the work of the American photographer Berenice Abbott through her scientific experiments.

Berenice Abbott began her artistic career in New York, Berlin and Paris, where she worked as Man Ray’s assistant. At his side, she discovered photography, then set out as an independent photographer in 1926, making portraits of well-known artists and writers. When she returned from Paris in 1929, Abbott began work on her historic project, Changing New York. Fascinated by Manhattan’s rapid transformation, she decided to ‘do for New York what Atget had done for Paris’, i.e. to meticulously document a changing city. While the project became a book in 1939 it was also interrupted when the Federal Art Project ran short of funds, spurring her to head in other directions, most notably to take an interest in scientific photography. Though she had previously had no knowledge of the field, she eventually spent over twenty years in it. It was a risky affair trying to explain science through images to a general audience, but her work would be recognized as one of the most important of the 20th century. In 1944 and 1945, she worked for the journal Science Illustrated, where she became the photo editor and published many scientific images. More importantly, in 1958, she was hired by MIT’s Physical Science Study Committee, a team of researchers whose mandate was to supervise and improve science teaching in American high schools. For the Committee, Abbott produced images illustrating the physical principles of light, speed and magnetism, which were subsequently used in various scholastic works. In 1960, the travelling exhibition, Image of Physics, which began its journey at Washington DC’s Smithsonian Institute, highlighted the uniqueness of Abbott’s work in an already-unique field, as evidenced by the photographs opposite, which are available at the Galerie.