The Art of Photographing Photographers

While in Europe, Imogen tracked down the great American expatriate artist Man Ray and made a stunning portrait of this multi-disciplinary artist. Often in her long career, Imogen used darkroom magic to transform an ordinary photograph, into something much more.READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Original Portrait of Man Ray

Meg Partridge recounts her grandmother’s method: “Imogen did whatever it took to make a photograph go from good to great. She took a straightforward picture of Man Ray sitting at his desk and in the darkroom she made it into something fabulous by moving the image in the enlarger as many as eight times to create a layered, cinematic effect.”

“Imogen had gumption. She was never shy about photographing other photographers. You just have to bring your best game to photo sessions with great artists.”

A Man Ray Version of Man Ray

Berenice Abbott, another Circle of Light photographer, had a very different relationship with Man Ray. Cunningham met Man Ray, later in life, when she was an established artist, but Abbott was not even working in the medium when she met Man Ray in 1923, through the expatriate community in Paris. Abbott was trying her hand at sculpture, when she heard through Marcel Duchamp, that Man Ray was looking for an untrained assistant. A previous assistant had been too aggressive in his questioning of Man Ray’s methods, and Man Ray was looking for a more malleable employee. Abbott fit the bill since she had never printed a photograph or seriously used a camera. Abbott was quickly smitten with photography and abandoned sculpture permanently.

Berenice Abbott, 1921, by Man Ray

Man Ray taught Abbott to print negatives and use a camera. Abbott was an avid learner and within three years or so, she had established her own studio. Jean Cocteau was her first official sitter. James Joyce, Eugene Atget, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Djuna Barnes are among her most notable subjects. Her portrait of Joyce is one of the most widely reproduced images of the great Irish novelist.

The practice of photographers switching roles and becoming the subject of an image is deeply rooted. Cunningham’s portrait of the mature Man Ray reminds us of his portrait of the young Berenice Abbott taken nearly 4 decades earlier.

Ideas Without End

When examining Imogen Cunningham Estate prints, one cannot help but notice the Chinese characters that lie to the right of her signature. A chop is an East Asian printing stamp that is used in lieu of a signature made with a pen in some Asian countries. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

These stamps can be made of metal, stone, plastic, ivory and so forth and make an indentation on paper when pressure is applied. Imogen’s chop is very special as it was developed by Imogen and designed by Shen Yao, a friend of Imogen’s and a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii.

The chop is composed of three Chinese characters, Im-o-gen, spelling out “Imogen” phonetically and also translating literally into the phrase “ideas without end.” A fourth character, the customary seal was added. Shen Yao’s role is even more special, Imogen’s granddaughter Meg Partridge 
says, because Imogen knew Shen Yao since the professor was a young girl.

Creativity and Longevity in the Careers of:
Imogen Cunningham, Bernice Abbott and Paul Strand

All three photographers had impressive work ethics that drove them to create photographs until the end of their long lives. Cunningham died at 93; Abbott at 93 and Strand at 85.

Perhaps an abiding interest in the world beyond one’s self is a key to longevity. These photographers drew their inspiration from the external world, whether the impetus was to document changes in the way people live and work or a desire to explore different values and political systems. Curiosity is a trait linking these three very different photographers. The camera represented a kind of fountain of youth for Abbott, Cunningham and Strand, who were determined to use this still young medium as a powerful tool of understanding. These three Americans traveled the globe in search of photographic success in their own unique ways.

Berenice Abbott, NYC, 1986 – by Arnold Newman

Bernice Abbott was part of the American expatriate community in Paris in the 1920s. After studying sculpture in Europe for a few years, she found her calling when she convinced Dadaist Man Ray to hire her as a darkroom assistant, despite her lack of experience.

“America was no place for the artist, and it was no place for me. Nothing would have happened to me here. A poor girl from the middle west with nothing open for me except marriage,” Abbott says in Martha Wheelock’s excellent film, Bernice Abbott, A View of the 20th Century. “There was a general feeling of hope. The war had lifted off of people’s shoulders. There is a café life there that’s very wonderful. People come there late in the afternoon after a days work. You exchange ideas and you’re alive.“

Paul Strand, NYC, 1966 – by Arnold Newman

Paul Strand moved to Mexico in the 1930s to photograph labor and farming communities, after being invited by Carlos Chavez, director of the fine arts department of the Secretariat of Public Education, to document the changing landscape and people of Mexico. During the two years Strand spent there, he traveled the countryside photographing small towns, churches, religious icons and the people who inhabited the land. Eventually, Strand moved to France permanently in the 1950s. His adopted country became a base to explore Europe and Africa.

Imogen Cunningham, NYC, 1969 – by Arnold Newman

For part of her career, Imogen Cunningham was restricted geographically by familial duties, but she also traveled to Europe at the end of her life and photographed extensively there. Though her photographic endeavors were primarily centered on the West Coast, her projects where as diverse and expansive, as those of her peers in the Circle of Light exhibition.

Science backs up the anecdotal evidence that imaginative pursuits can fuel longevity, as Jeffrey Kluger writes in a 2013 Time Magazine article, “Increasingly, brain research is showing that in the case of creative people, this mortal cause-and-effect pays powerful dividends–that it’s not just the luck of living a long life that allows some people to leave behind such robust bodies of work but that the act of doing creative work is what helps add those extra years.”

Though what scientists call “fluid intelligence,” which includes memory and computational speed, almost invariably decline with age, the brain can actually repair itself and strengthen right and left-brain connections as it ages. Kruger continues. “Studies with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), however, show that in the older brain, one hemisphere is not shy about calling on the other for help if it’s having trouble with a task. ‘There may be a decline in function, but it’s partly compensated for by a reorganization in function,’ says cognitive neuroscientist Roberto Cabeza of Duke University. ‘The brain shows these changes into the 80s.’ That can pay particular dividends for the artist, Cabeza says. Language conveys meaning, but if you want to give it particular resonance, it helps to attach a picture to the words. So the left-brain has to reach into the right for help–the poet borrowing one of the painter’s brushes. That’s not easy to do–which is why not everyone can be a poet–but when the walls between the hemispheres get lower, the job gets easier.”

Though Imogen Cunningham is often associated with West Coast photographers, such as Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange, who also came to prominence in the greater San Francisco area in the 1930’s, her photographic origins are equally rooted in the European tradition. As a young woman Imogen traveled to Dresden, Germany to study chemistry and photography in 1909. This was a bold step for a woman at the turn of the Twentieth Century; one of many pioneering courses Imogen would chart in her long life. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

In 1960 and 1961, Imogen again crossed the Atlantic to reconnect with old acquaintances and meet photographers she admired, according to Meg Partridge; an Oscar nominated filmmaker and Imogen’s granddaughter. “She really felt a part of the European photography culture because she had studied in Germany as a young woman, and she had kept up with the work of Europeans. She was curious about the icons of photography…she just sought them out her whole life. Imogen had relationships with other artists that lasted 50 years. She never stopped making connections.”

The Marche’ Aux Oiseaux, Paris, 1960

During these two trips in the Sixties, Imogen made iconic photographs of artists August Sander, Alvin Langdon Coburn and Man Ray, as well as evocative street scenes in Paris and other European cities.Lumière is proud to exhibit a selection of Imogen’s European works as part of the Circle of Light Exhibition that opens September 26, 2015.

While reconnecting with her circle of friends, Imogen’s sense of curiosity also led her out into the streets of Paris. “She sought out places were people would be accessible and active, such as The Marche’ Aux Oiseaux, a French bird market,“ said Partridge. “A lot of humanity goes on in the streets of Europe because the spaces are so much smaller than in the United States. Public places in Europe can be very intimate.” Imogen…was always looking for a spark of connection or recognition that would transcend the language barrier

American Bar, Strasbourg, 1960

In American Bar, Strasbourg, 1960, Imogen trains her lens on an elegant woman whose gaze seems to slice through the crowded bar and directly connect with the photographer. While looking at this image, a viewer can almost feel the room fall silent when the shutter is clicked. Imogen cleverly uses subtle architectural details, such as a piece of an awning hanging from the top of the frame to guide the eye straight through the crowd towards her subject. Imogen contrasts this woman with a younger man off to the left side of the image who looks out into the distance, as if contemplating his fate, while the elegant woman seems to know hers. “That glance speaks to me of how Imogen persisted and responded to someone, and she got that picture – that special flash of recognition that passes between subject and photographer,” Partridge said.

Child, Near Place des Vosges, Paris, 1961

The openness of children is another of Imogen’s favorite subjects. Child, Place des Vosges, Paris, 1961, which depicts a young boy who pauses in the act of snapping a rubber band to scrutinize Imogen, is a vivid example of this interest. A viewer can imagine that Imogen appeared to this child like a character in a fairy tale with only she carried a camera instead of a magic wand. Edna Tartaul Daniel, an interviewer with The Regional History Project of the University of California at Berkley described Imogen’s appearance around the time Child, Place des Vosges was taken, “A small blonde person, neither thin nor thick; She dressed in garments of easy cut with accents in either color or design of pleasant and occasionally picturesque nature. Without concern for fashion, she wore clothing useful and interesting to herself, and shoes appropriate to a working photographer, who transported herself, with photographic paraphernalia slung about her, on train or bus.” “She sought out children who engaged her on the street – she did that time and time again – children without their parents. She was looking for that honesty and innocence found in children. Children are transparent, and that’s what Imogen was going for,” says Partridge.

Bourget, Strasbourg, 1960

Bourget, Strasbourg, 1960, is a photo of a shop window full of lingerie that seems to have come alive, despite the absence of a mannequin or human. A single stocking clad foot seems to tip toe through the frame while a girdle leans provocatively against it. What sets the picture apart are the unusually angular shapes the fabric makes, as if the shopkeeper wanted to emphasize how uncomfortable, yet still beautiful, these garments must be. This tableau seems familiar because it is part of a continuum in the medium. “This image speaks to the history of photography in Paris and references Atget. All that living was just over the top,” said Partridge.

The photographs in this exhibition are part of a larger body of work created in Berlin, Munich, Paris and London in 1960. More photographs were created the following year, when Imogen returned to Paris and also journeyed to Norway, Finland, Sweden Denmark and Poland. Her friend and fellow photographer Edgar Bissantz drove her around the continent, visiting their friends and making images. The European images were largely printed by Imogen’s son Ron Partridge in the 1980s and 1990s.

Complete information about Cunningham’s work, can be found on her Artist Page.

Social documentary photographer Lewis Hine’s career intersected with two of the Circle of Light artists, Paul Strand and Berenice Abbott. At the dawn of the Twentieth Century, Hine, who was making iconic Ellis Island photographs, taught an extracurricular course at New York’s Ethical Culture School, and one of his students was a young Paul Strand. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Lewis taught this small class of six students the mechanics of the camera, how to use magnesium powder in flashes, and most importantly, he introduced Strand to Alfred Stieglitz at the Photo-Secession Gallery on Fifth Avenue. This was a fortuitous meeting, as Stieglitz eventually became a major advocate for Strand, publishing his early photographs and heralding Strand’s accomplishments through the gallery.

Child Labor – Lewis Hine

Though he was only 17, after visiting the gallery Strand declared that his only goal to be “an artist in photography.” After this pivotal encounter, Strand never veered from a life in art. After finishing high school, Strand decided not to attend college, and after brief stints working for his father, and serving in the army, he embarked on a life of photography and filmmaking.

Portrait of Lewis Hine, by Berenice Abbott

Berenice Abbott played a role in Hine’s career at the end of his life. She visited Hine when he was ill and had been rendered impoverished by the Great Depression. The artist who exposed the evils of child labor, unsafe working conditions, the plight of immigrants and the slums of the Lower East Side of Manhattan had been largely forgotten. Abbott organized an exhibition of his work that re-established Hine’s contribution to the medium of photography and the progressive movement.

Much has been written about Berneice Abbott’s heroic efforts to preserve the Parisian negatives of Eugene Atget. She played a similar role in cementing Hine’s place in art history. Martha Wheelock, who made a documentary of Berenice Abbott’s life, recounts the Hine-Abbott connection. “Lewis Hine was penniless and had all these interesting pictures of people working in the mills. Bernice Abbott alone got his work in the press and also staged an exhibition of his work, but she never did that sort of thing for herself. I think that says a great deal about her as a human being and as an artist.”

Creativity and Longevity in the Careers of:
Imogen Cunningham, Bernice Abbott and Paul Strand

All three photographers had impressive work ethics that drove them to create photographs until the end of their long lives. Cunningham died at 93; Abbott at 93 and Strand at 85.

Perhaps an abiding interest in the world beyond one’s self is a key to longevity. These photographers drew their inspiration from the external world, whether the impetus was to document changes in the way people live and work or a desire to explore different values and political systems. Curiosity is a trait linking these three very different photographers. The camera represented a kind of fountain of youth for Abbott, Cunningham and Strand, who were determined to use this still young medium as a powerful tool of understanding. These three Americans traveled the globe in search of photographic success in their own unique ways.

Berenice Abbott, NYC, 1986 – by Arnold Newman

Bernice Abbott was part of the American expatriate community in Paris in the 1920s. After studying sculpture in Europe for a few years, she found her calling when she convinced Dadaist Man Ray to hire her as a darkroom assistant, despite her lack of experience.

“America was no place for the artist, and it was no place for me. Nothing would have happened to me here. A poor girl from the middle west with nothing open for me except marriage,” Abbott says in Martha Wheelock’s excellent film, Bernice Abbott, A View of the 20th Century. “There was a general feeling of hope. The war had lifted off of people’s shoulders. There is a café life there that’s very wonderful. People come there late in the afternoon after a days work. You exchange ideas and you’re alive.“

Paul Strand, NYC, 1966 – by Arnold Newman

Paul Strand moved to Mexico in the 1930s to photograph labor and farming communities, after being invited by Carlos Chavez, director of the fine arts department of the Secretariat of Public Education, to document the changing landscape and people of Mexico. During the two years Strand spent there, he traveled the countryside photographing small towns, churches, religious icons and the people who inhabited the land. Eventually, Strand moved to France permanently in the 1950s. His adopted country became a base to explore Europe and Africa.

Imogen Cunningham, NYC, 1969 – by Arnold Newman

For part of her career, Imogen Cunningham was restricted geographically by familial duties, but she also traveled to Europe at the end of her life and photographed extensively there. Though her photographic endeavors were primarily centered on the West Coast, her projects where as diverse and expansive, as those of her peers in the Circle of Light exhibition.

Science backs up the anecdotal evidence that imaginative pursuits can fuel longevity, as Jeffrey Kluger writes in a 2013 Time Magazine article, “Increasingly, brain research is showing that in the case of creative people, this mortal cause-and-effect pays powerful dividends–that it’s not just the luck of living a long life that allows some people to leave behind such robust bodies of work but that the act of doing creative work is what helps add those extra years.”

Though what scientists call “fluid intelligence,” which includes memory and computational speed, almost invariably decline with age, the brain can actually repair itself and strengthen right and left-brain connections as it ages. Kruger continues. “Studies with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), however, show that in the older brain, one hemisphere is not shy about calling on the other for help if it’s having trouble with a task. ‘There may be a decline in function, but it’s partly compensated for by a reorganization in function,’ says cognitive neuroscientist Roberto Cabeza of Duke University. ‘The brain shows these changes into the 80s.’ That can pay particular dividends for the artist, Cabeza says. Language conveys meaning, but if you want to give it particular resonance, it helps to attach a picture to the words. So the left-brain has to reach into the right for help–the poet borrowing one of the painter’s brushes. That’s not easy to do–which is why not everyone can be a poet–but when the walls between the hemispheres get lower, the job gets easier.”

“The Photo League was a remarkable and unique organization, at that time or at any other time. It had no equivalent. They (the members of the Photo League) felt as I have, that the function of art was to speak to people about the world in which they exist.” — Paul StrandREAD ENTIRE ARTICLE

Paul Strand – Tailor’s Apprentice

Paul Strand was a vital member of The Photo League, not only because he served on its advisory board, but because his work resonated so clearly with the group’s mission. Strand is known for pictures examining labor and the working class in North American, Europe and Africa, but also for his groundbreaking early work as a modernist. As a leader in the League and a teacher there, he was able to help other photographers hone their own visions, so they could also reveal the world to their audiences.

The Photo League was a cooperative of photographers and filmmakers in New York who banded together around a range of common social and creative causes. The League was active from 1936 to 1951 and included among its members some of the most influential American photographers of the era.

Photo League artists with ties to Lumière, include Berenice Abbott, Helen Levitt, Harold Feinstein, Dorothea Lange, Aaron Siskind, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Strand. The links above will take you to these artists’
specific pages on the Lumière site.

Berenice Abbott – Pier 21, NYC

The League was founded to train photographers in the social documentary tradition. As such, it ran a school, published a newsletter, sponsored talks and exhibitions by leading European and American photographers, as well as providing a community for photographers to grow professionally and personally. The League also maintained Lewis Hine’s archive.

Many passionate discussions about what photography could or should be – reverberated through its halls. For example, an intense debate erupted when Aaron Siskind turned from his documentary exploration of Harlem to an examination of abstraction inspired by graffiti.

Strand, whose work can also be seen online in Lumière’s Circle of Light exhibition, was an especially influential member of the Photo League. His work defined what was best about both the documentary and modernist models of photography, according to League members. As such, he was immune from much of the criticism leveled at other members whose work was not as successful in uniting social content with impeccable form. Though published after the Photo League disbanded, Strand’s book, The Face of France, is an example of his fluidity.

“The Photo League was a remarkable and unique organization, at that time or at any other time. It had no equivalent. They (the members of the Photo League) felt as I have, that the function of art was to speak to people about the world in which they exist,” Strand said in an interview with Anne Tucker, former curator of the Houston Museum of Fine Art.

Paul Strand – Woman & Boy (Mexican Portfolio)

The Photo League was one of the few places Strand exhibited The Mexican Portfolio, where it was shown in 1941. Strand did not often exhibit his work during his life, so his exhibition at The Photo League speaks to the intensity of his feelings about the organization. Strand’s prints were laborious to make, as he was a perfectionist, so he did not often make multiple copies of individual images. Later he turned to bookmaking and photogravure as means of expressing his vision.

The Photo League was rooted in leftist and labor politics of the 1930s, and though it had diversified its political thought somewhat since its inception, the League was not able to withstand attacks mounted by the supporters of McCarthyism.

Though the League disbanded in 1951, Paul Strand felt the League had succeeded because it trained a generation of photographers and encouraged them to reach the public through their efforts.

Even as the League was winding down, Strand maintained his commitment to the organization. In fact, Strand was the only photographer to teach a documentary class after 1947. In Tucker’s words, the class was Strand’s last gift to the League.

Additional information about Strand’s work, can be found on his Artist Page.

Near Saltillo, Mexico, 1932

Paul Strand was immediately smitten with the Mexican landscape upon seeing the terrain from behind the wheel of his Model A Ford in the early days of his sojourn there, according to scholar Calvin Tomkins. In contrast with his earlier mode of photographing landscapes, Strand made some of his best pictures here at first sight.READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Near Saltillo, Mexico, 1932

Prior to his travels in Mexico, Strand was of the opinion an artist needed to have a deeper knowledge of a place before beginning to take pictures.

“The minute you get into Mexico, you begin to see a range of mountains that must be part of the American chain but are completely different,” Strand is quoted as saying, “They have a different feeling-something I found a little threatening and sinister.”

Landscape, Near Saltillo, Mexico, 1932, depicts the northern region of Mexico where Strand initially traveled and began making images. This image was very important to Strand, and he chose it as the opening photograph in his Mexican Portfolio. Landscape, Near Saltillo, Mexico, 1932, compels the viewer to look closely at the picture, as the eye travels through a dark shadow at the bottom of the frame, and moves into the lighter sky, a small white structure is revealed through a thicket of Cactus. This interpretation of the Saltillo landscape implies that while there is much to see here, the viewer must make a commitment to truly see the land and the structures within it.

When Paul Strand first went to Mexico in 1932, at the invitation of Mexican composer Carlos Chávez, he had no clear intentions to photograph. The Great Depression was underway, and Strand was facing a failing marriage and the dissolution of his relationship with his mentor, Alfred Stieglitz. Mexico, which had just emerged from revolution beckoned many artists of Strand’s generation, whose politics leaned left, towards Communism and Marxism. Mexico was not yet industrialized, and seemed full of promise.READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Woman and Boy, Tenancingo, 1933

As Strand began to make still images and films, his work shifted towards a more humanistic approach. His subjects included churches, small towns, religious iconography, and the Mexican people. Strand sometimes photographed with a modified camera using a trick lens. A prism feature allowed Strand to photograph a subject off to the side of the scene while the lens pointed straight ahead. Strand wanted the candid feel of a small format camera but the large negative and gravitas of a view camera. He employed this method in his earlier New York portraiture.

“Strand was a kind of iconic figure as far as introducing a modernist type photography in this country,” Strand expert Anthony Montoya said, noting that his images dealt with abstractions and social commentary more common in painting than photography. “There was a movement away from the predominant photography at the time, called Pictorialism, which had a soft focus that looked like Impressionist painting, to the hard-edge grittiness of modernism,” Montoya added. “Strand was a link between the two.”

Strand created over 175 negatives, as well as 60 plus platinum prints during his time in Mexico. His classic film, Redes (The Wave), reflects the post-revolutionary influence of Mexican culture and politics on Strand. The film was financed in part by the Mexican government.

Complete information about Strand’s work, can be found on his Artist Page.

House of Photography

In addition to her artistic accomplishments, Berenice Abbott invented photographic equipment and held four patents on her inventions. In 1947, she and several business associates established The House of Photography, which was a commercial venture designed to bring her inventions to market.READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Diagram from patent for candid camera, 1958

Abbott’s biographer Hank O’Neal discusses some of her major inventions in his book, Bernice Abbott American Photographer. These devises include a distortion easel, an autopole, a cloth vest with many pockets, a candid camera and a precursor to the monopod. The House of Photography was a financial failure, and Abbott eventually lost her backers, though the company existed on paper for many years after it ceased to function.

O’Neal remembers looking through Abbott’s attic in Monson, Maine, where she lived at the end of her life, and finding models for inventions, stock certificates and other corporate documents, as well as the corporate seal. Though the business was a bust, O’Neal says her journals and notebooks from that time frame reveal a river of ideas and questions. Interestingly, Abbott wrote registered letters to herself as a way of documenting and dating her most evolved ideas.

Story Behind the Picture

Berenice Abbott’s 1411 9th Street, Augusta, Georgia, 1954
One of the major topics Berenice Abbott addressed in her Route 1 series was racial tension in the south, primarily in Georgia and Florida. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

1411 9th Street, Augusta Georgia, 1954

Abbott was uncomfortable documenting poverty, according to colleagues who knew her, but she felt strongly enough about the disparity between the races to push past her reticence. Abbott also brought a different sensibility to the face of poverty than other photographers, such as Margaret Bourke-White, Walker Evans, and other Farm Security photographers, who tackled the same subject. There are subtle shadings of hope in her images, and Abbott was careful to respect peoples’ dignity when she made artistic and technical decisions about the construction of an image.

Abbott always maintained that the physical placement of the view camera was critical for the meaning of the resulting picture, as well as its compositional structure. Because Abbott placed her camera to the left of the home, one of the first objects a viewer sees is the thriving stalks of Sun Flowers abutting the family’s porch. Martha Wheelock points out that this indicates to the viewer that the family is not defeated by their situation, though Abbott still clearly documents their deprivations.

There is a tradition in photography of photographers and photo enthusiasts devoting significant portions of their own careers preserving the work of their artistic heroes whose work was on the verge of extinction. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Contemporary master Lee Friedlander discovered, printed and published the evocative French Quarter portraits of E.J. Bellocq. In a stroke of good fortune, photographer Peter Miller moved to tiny Heber Springs, Arkansas, in the 1970s, where he unearthed the neglected portraits of Mike Disfarmer, the town’s studio photographer, who turned out to have been a powerful and unsentimental documentarian of small town life.

Eugene Atget, Paris, 1927

In recent years, John Maloof discovered and brought to light the incredible archive of Vivian Maier. Though their work is very different, both Disfarmer and Maier were working in a kind of vacuum, never imagining or seeking fame.

Bernice Abbott saved Atget’s Paris archive from oblivion, and in a karmic circle, her own forgotten pictures of Route 1 were brought to light by writers Hank O’Neil and Ron Kurtz decades after they were created.

Abbott documented life along Route 1 from Maine to Florida, but in 1958 she abandoned the project for lack of a publisher. The work, as well as some of her unknown New York photographs, was largely unseen until recently.

Complete information about Abbott’s work, can be found on her Artist Page.

Imagine this: Berenice Abbott, her trusty view camera, a portable darkroom, a giant schnauzer named Schoen, and a pair of newlyweds, cram into a station wagon and head down Route 1 in the summer of 1954 to photograph small towns along the coast for months on end. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Baptist Church, Augusta, Georgia, 1954

How did this unlikely party form? A cash-strapped (and carless) Abbott happened to meet Damon Gadd, son of a New York developer, who was eager to learn the craft of photography. Ever inventive, Abbott traded Gadd photography lessons for transportation and off they went. The group, including Gadd’s newly wed wife Sara, left New York on Route 1, traveled south to Key West, Florida, and back north again, concluding the journey in Maine.

By the trip’s end, Abbott had made 2,400 negatives, which translates roughly into one photograph per mile of the trip. Route 1 is the longest north-south road in the US, and connects major cities including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Miami.

This bargain has to be one of the most creative ones struck in the history of photography. As Abbott was nearing her 60s, she found herself struggling with a lack of funding as she had most of her career, despite her great achievements.

A selection of these stunning Route 1 photograph can now be seen in the Lumière exhibition Circle of Light. The magnitude of this achievement was not fully recognized during her lifetime, though the pictures were occasionally exhibited. “I think almost more than any other work she did, this (Route 1) really got to the heart of what she was interested in illustrating, which was the sense of a changing landscape through photographs that were truly objective in their presentation,” said David Prince, curator of the University Art Collection at Syracuse.

Route 1 echoes many of the same themes in Changing New York, only on a national scale. Abbott saw that the federal highway program, begun in the Eisenhower era, would forever change the country. Interstate 95 would eventually divert traffic from Route 1, and life along the road would also shift from villages to exit ramp clusters. Though Abbott had an idea for a similar trip in the 1930s, her teaching schedule at The New School in New York prevented her from taking the long absences needed to pursue her personal projects. But by the 1950s, time was running out to capture this fading way of life. “Before bulldozers and derricks moved in,” Abbott said.

“It’s so different…Now, if you just drive the freeways down to Florida, you won’t see that much of an interesting, different world. I think it will help remind people of a world that isn’t all strip malls from Maine to Florida,” Abbott told an Associated Press reporter in 2003.

As for Damon Gadd, not much is known about the specifics of his lessons with Abbott. The Gadds settled in Vermont after the trip, and 4 years later, went on to found the Sugarbush ski resort in 1958. Sugarbush became popular with the jet set, by introducing innovations such as an enclosed Italian-built gondola lift, during the Gadd’s tenure.The resort attracted the Kennedys, actress Kim Novak, fashion designer Oleg Cassini, and many others. The Gadds eventually sold the resort to Roy Cohen in 1977 and retired to Florida.

Additional information about Abbott’s work, can be found on her Artist Page.

The Art of Photographing Photographers

While in Europe, Imogen tracked down the great American expatriate artist Man Ray and made a stunning portrait of this multi-disciplinary artist. Often in her long career, Imogen used darkroom magic to transform an ordinary photograph, into something much more.READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Original Portrait of Man Ray

Meg Partridge recounts her grandmother’s method: “Imogen did whatever it took to make a photograph go from good to great. She took a straightforward picture of Man Ray sitting at his desk and in the darkroom she made it into something fabulous by moving the image in the enlarger as many as eight times to create a layered, cinematic effect.”

“Imogen had gumption. She was never shy about photographing other photographers. You just have to bring your best game to photo sessions with great artists.”

A Man Ray Version of Man Ray

Berenice Abbott, another Circle of Light photographer, had a very different relationship with Man Ray. Cunningham met Man Ray, later in life, when she was an established artist, but Abbott was not even working in the medium when she met Man Ray in 1923, through the expatriate community in Paris. Abbott was trying her hand at sculpture, when she heard through Marcel Duchamp, that Man Ray was looking for an untrained assistant. A previous assistant had been too aggressive in his questioning of Man Ray’s methods, and Man Ray was looking for a more malleable employee. Abbott fit the bill since she had never printed a photograph or seriously used a camera. Abbott was quickly smitten with photography and abandoned sculpture permanently.

Berenice Abbott, 1921, by Man Ray

Man Ray taught Abbott to print negatives and use a camera. Abbott was an avid learner and within three years or so, she had established her own studio. Jean Cocteau was her first official sitter. James Joyce, Eugene Atget, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Djuna Barnes are among her most notable subjects. Her portrait of Joyce is one of the most widely reproduced images of the great Irish novelist.

The practice of photographers switching roles and becoming the subject of an image is deeply rooted. Cunningham’s portrait of the mature Man Ray reminds us of his portrait of the young Berenice Abbott taken nearly 4 decades earlier.

Social documentary photographer Lewis Hine’s career intersected with two of the Circle of Light artists, Paul Strand and Berenice Abbott. At the dawn of the Twentieth Century, Hine, who was making iconic Ellis Island photographs, taught an extracurricular course at New York’s Ethical Culture School, and one of his students was a young Paul Strand. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Lewis taught this small class of six students the mechanics of the camera, how to use magnesium powder in flashes, and most importantly, he introduced Strand to Alfred Stieglitz at the Photo-Secession Gallery on Fifth Avenue. This was a fortuitous meeting, as Stieglitz eventually became a major advocate for Strand, publishing his early photographs and heralding Strand’s accomplishments through the gallery.

Child Labor – Lewis Hine

Though he was only 17, after visiting the gallery Strand declared that his only goal to be “an artist in photography.” After this pivotal encounter, Strand never veered from a life in art. After finishing high school, Strand decided not to attend college, and after brief stints working for his father, and serving in the army, he embarked on a life of photography and filmmaking.

Portrait of Lewis Hine, by Berenice Abbott

Berenice Abbott played a role in Hine’s career at the end of his life. She visited Hine when he was ill and had been rendered impoverished by the Great Depression. The artist who exposed the evils of child labor, unsafe working conditions, the plight of immigrants and the slums of the Lower East Side of Manhattan had been largely forgotten. Abbott organized an exhibition of his work that re-established Hine’s contribution to the medium of photography and the progressive movement.

Much has been written about Berneice Abbott’s heroic efforts to preserve the Parisian negatives of Eugene Atget. She played a similar role in cementing Hine’s place in art history. Martha Wheelock, who made a documentary of Berenice Abbott’s life, recounts the Hine-Abbott connection. “Lewis Hine was penniless and had all these interesting pictures of people working in the mills. Bernice Abbott alone got his work in the press and also staged an exhibition of his work, but she never did that sort of thing for herself. I think that says a great deal about her as a human being and as an artist.”

Creativity and Longevity in the Careers of:
Imogen Cunningham, Bernice Abbott and Paul Strand

All three photographers had impressive work ethics that drove them to create photographs until the end of their long lives. Cunningham died at 93; Abbott at 93 and Strand at 85.

Perhaps an abiding interest in the world beyond one’s self is a key to longevity. These photographers drew their inspiration from the external world, whether the impetus was to document changes in the way people live and work or a desire to explore different values and political systems. Curiosity is a trait linking these three very different photographers. The camera represented a kind of fountain of youth for Abbott, Cunningham and Strand, who were determined to use this still young medium as a powerful tool of understanding. These three Americans traveled the globe in search of photographic success in their own unique ways.

Berenice Abbott, NYC, 1986 – by Arnold Newman

Bernice Abbott was part of the American expatriate community in Paris in the 1920s. After studying sculpture in Europe for a few years, she found her calling when she convinced Dadaist Man Ray to hire her as a darkroom assistant, despite her lack of experience.

“America was no place for the artist, and it was no place for me. Nothing would have happened to me here. A poor girl from the middle west with nothing open for me except marriage,” Abbott says in Martha Wheelock’s excellent film, Bernice Abbott, A View of the 20th Century. “There was a general feeling of hope. The war had lifted off of people’s shoulders. There is a café life there that’s very wonderful. People come there late in the afternoon after a days work. You exchange ideas and you’re alive.“

Paul Strand, NYC, 1966 – by Arnold Newman

Paul Strand moved to Mexico in the 1930s to photograph labor and farming communities, after being invited by Carlos Chavez, director of the fine arts department of the Secretariat of Public Education, to document the changing landscape and people of Mexico. During the two years Strand spent there, he traveled the countryside photographing small towns, churches, religious icons and the people who inhabited the land. Eventually, Strand moved to France permanently in the 1950s. His adopted country became a base to explore Europe and Africa.

Imogen Cunningham, NYC, 1969 – by Arnold Newman

For part of her career, Imogen Cunningham was restricted geographically by familial duties, but she also traveled to Europe at the end of her life and photographed extensively there. Though her photographic endeavors were primarily centered on the West Coast, her projects where as diverse and expansive, as those of her peers in the Circle of Light exhibition.

Science backs up the anecdotal evidence that imaginative pursuits can fuel longevity, as Jeffrey Kluger writes in a 2013 Time Magazine article, “Increasingly, brain research is showing that in the case of creative people, this mortal cause-and-effect pays powerful dividends–that it’s not just the luck of living a long life that allows some people to leave behind such robust bodies of work but that the act of doing creative work is what helps add those extra years.”

Though what scientists call “fluid intelligence,” which includes memory and computational speed, almost invariably decline with age, the brain can actually repair itself and strengthen right and left-brain connections as it ages. Kruger continues. “Studies with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), however, show that in the older brain, one hemisphere is not shy about calling on the other for help if it’s having trouble with a task. ‘There may be a decline in function, but it’s partly compensated for by a reorganization in function,’ says cognitive neuroscientist Roberto Cabeza of Duke University. ‘The brain shows these changes into the 80s.’ That can pay particular dividends for the artist, Cabeza says. Language conveys meaning, but if you want to give it particular resonance, it helps to attach a picture to the words. So the left-brain has to reach into the right for help–the poet borrowing one of the painter’s brushes. That’s not easy to do–which is why not everyone can be a poet–but when the walls between the hemispheres get lower, the job gets easier.”