New York at night

item details

NameNew York at night

ProductionBerenice Abbott; photographer; circa 1932; New York

Classificationblack-and-white prints, gelatin silver prints, black-and-white photographs, works of art

Materialssilver, photographic gelatin, photographic paper

Materials Summaryblack and white photograph, gelatin silver print

Techniquesblack-and-white photography

DimensionsImage: 240mm (height), 190mm (length)

Registration NumberO.003654

Credit linePurchased 1987 with New Zealand Lottery Board funds

Overview

Like Lásló Moholy-Nagy, Alexander Rodchenko and others in 1920s Europe and Russia, Berenice Abbott considered photography the medium best suited for expressing the contemporary world. It was, she said, ‘born of a century which ushered in the speeding-up of science, of haste itself, of exploding knowledge, of super populations, boiling tensions, in short a world in upheaval’.¹

New York in the 1930s epitomised for her these characteristics of ‘life at its greatest intensity’.² She came to this realisation when revisiting the city in 1929 for the purpose of finding a publisher for Eugène Atget’s photographs of another city that had undergone rapid change: Paris. She was struck by the sleek new art deco skyscrapers, the canyons of the financial district, the mass transit systems, and the clearing of old neighbourhoods for these developments that had occurred during the nine years she had been living in Paris and Berlin.

Inspired by the city’s energy and renewal, Abbott decided to resettle in New York and make her project the photographic documentation of change in the city. She gained support from the recently founded Museum of the City of New York and, in 1934, employment under the Federal Arts Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal relief scheme. Her plan of work was detailed and exhaustive. Top-level subject headings were Material Aspect (including ‘historical, picturesque, architecturally significant, and deluxe’ buildings), Means of Life (covering transportation, communications, and supplies such as food, water, heat and light) and, lastly, People and How They Live. In all, the project resulted in 12,772 negatives, each with written documentation created by a team of assistants also employed by the FAP.

Meticulous planning was often required. For this image Abbott knew she would have to photograph before people turned off the lights in their Manhattan offices as they left work at five o’clock. And for darkness at such an hour it would need to be around mid-winter. Wind was also a factor, as the fifteen-minute exposure required on her 8 x 10-inch camera could be ruined by its shaking effect. Fortunately, on the date she chose, the shortest day of the year, the weather was fine, and she created a classic image of modernity.

Athol McCredie

This essay appears in Art at Te Papa, (Te Papa Press, 2009)

1. Berenice Abbott, New York in the thirties: The photographs of Berenice Abbott, Side Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1977, p. 5.
2. Cited in Naomi Rosenblum, A world history of photography, Abbeville Press, New York, 1984, p. 371.