In parallel with the Charles Marville photography exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Howard Greenberg Gallery is showcasing the photographer’s American counterpart. On the one hand, we have Marville (1813-1879) documenting the mid-19th century reconstruction of Paris led by Baron Haussmann. On the other hand, we have Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) and her photographs of New York in the 1930s, shot for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Every Wednesday, Abbott documented the social, commercial and architectural features of a city in transition: a gas station, elevated train tracks, busy shopping streets, parks, docks and bridges throughout New York’s five boroughs. The project would become the centerpiece of her oeuvre.
Abbott began the project upon her return to New York in 1929, when she discovered that several of the city’s 19th century buildings had been demolished to make way for skyscrapers. She had spent eight years in Paris, where she worked as Man Ray’s assistant and been inspired by Eugène Atget, whom she had met shortly before his death. Abbott wrote admiringly of the “unadorned realism” of the French master’s photographs. Visitors to the Howard Greenberg will be able to explore the special bond between the two cities through the work of two of the greatest photographers of architecture. Berenice Abbott would no doubt have enjoyed the comparison.
EXHIBITION
Berenice Abbott & Charles Marville: The City in Transition
Through April 12th
Howard Greenberg Gallery
The Fuller Building
41 East 57 Street
Suite 1406
New York, NY 10022
