Berenice Abbott

Berenice Abbott (July 17, 1898 – December 9, 1991), born Bernice Abbott, was an American photographer best known for her black-and-white photography of New York City architecture and urban design of the 1930s. Abbott was born in Springfield, Ohio and brought up there by her divorced mother. She attended the Ohio State University, but left in early 1918. In 1918 she moved with friends from OSU to New York's Greenwich Village, where she was 'adopted' by the anarchist Hippolyte Havel. She shared an apartment on Greenwich Avenue with several others, including the writer Djuna Barnes, philosopher Kenneth Burke, and literary critic Malcolm Cowley. At first she pursued journalism, but soon became interested in theater and sculpture, perhaps because of her interaction with artists Eugene O'Neill, Man Ray and Sadakichi Hartmann. In 1919 she nearly died in the influenza pandemic. Abbott went to Europe in 1921, spending two years studying sculpture in Paris and Berlin. During this time, she... full article at wikipedia