New UMaine Museum of Art Exhibitions, June 25 – Sept. 18, 2004
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
The University of Maine Museum of Art is pleased to present three exhibitions this summer at Norumbega Hall in downtown Bangor.
Berenice Abbott
Cities Portraits
Photographs by Berenice Abbott, on view at the University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor from June 25 through September 18, 2004, highlight two major phases of this renowned photographer’s career. Berenice Abbott was one of the most accomplished documentary photographers of the 20th century as well as a prolific writer, teacher, and inventor. It was while working for Man Ray in Paris during the 1920s that Abbott first started working in photography. She made portraits during this time and continued to do so in New York City during the early 1930s. Abbott always allowed her sitters to relax and become comfortable in their surroundings before she captured their image, creating honest, straightforward photographs. Her portraits have proven to be true documents of the personalities of this era, still serving historians and scholars of the period. The second focus of this exhibition is on Abbott’s photographs of New York City, taken during the 1930s when the city was undergoing massive change and becoming a leading metropolis almost overnight. Working under the Federal Art Project, part of the Works Progress Administration, Abbott combed the streets of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, searching for change and the contrasts and contradictions brought on by it. The Changing New York photographs, like her portraits, capture the spirit of the age. Through her unique vision this project documented the changing face of the city. In 1939, she wrote that she had intended “