After being shown at Casa Garriga Nogués, Mapfre Barcelona’s exhibition hall, the Berenice Abbott. Portraits of Modernity exhibition arrived in Madrid to showcase the peculiar gaze of this unique artist. With the cities of New York and Paris taking a starring role as well as her portraits of artists and intellectuals of the 1920s and 1930s, Berenice Abbott offers us her personal vision of an era. End date: 25/08/2019
Berenice Abbott is more than a photographer, she is the pioneer of a modern and bold way of viewing the world. Her unconventional and extraordinary character is evident in her images and in the Berenice Abbott: A View of the 20th Century documentary made by Kay Weaver and Martha Wheelock in 1992, which is being screened at our Recoletos Exhibition Hall on the occasion of her photography exhibition.
The documentary Berenice Abbott: A View of the 20th Century (1992), in original version and lasting 56 minutes, can be seen on Monday, every hour from 2.30pm to 6.30pm (final showing), from Tuesday to Saturday, every hour from 10.30am to 6.30pm (final showing) and on Sundays and bank holidays, every hour from 11.30am to 5.30pm (final showing).
The exhibition has been produced by Fundación MAPFRE and curated by Estrella de Diego, professor of Contemporary Art at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid and member of the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts. This is the biggest Berenice Abbott retrospective ever organized in Spain, with pieces from some of the most important North American collections. The New York Public Library, The George Eastman Museum (Rochester, New York), The Howard Greenberg Gallery (New York), The International Center of Photography (New York), the MIT Museum (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and The Museum of the City of New York.
Berenice Abbott. Portraits of modernity offers us a tour of this exceptional American photographer’s world (Springfield, Ohio, 1898 – Monson, Maine, 1991). Through her work, Berenice Abbott opens the door to the beginning of the 20th century for us, offering us her personal depiction of a vibrant time in history.
Abbott’s work reflects her modern vision of an era. Her groundbreaking and bold gaze can be seen in her portraits of the most cutting-edge artists and intellectuals of the moment, through to the breathtaking views of New York City, as well as her scientific-themed photographs in which she captures the results of diverse phenomena and experiments. Together her photographs are an unparalled portrayal of the modernity of the new century.
This exhibition containing almost two hundred of the artist’s photographs is organized into three thematic sections. There are also eleven photographs of Eugène Atget developed by Abbott herself at the end of the 1950s.
More information at Fundación MAPFRE website
Picture: Aerial view of New York by night. ca. 1932-1933CreditCreditBerenice Abbott/Commerce Graphics/Getty Images
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