Berenice Abbott was born in Springfield, Ohio, and attended Ohio State University before leaving in 1918. She established herself as a photographer in 1920s Paris, where her portraits of cultural figures rivaled those of Man Ray. She is best known for her Changing New York series of the 1930s, documenting the city’s architecture and urban transformation, and for her later work interpreting scientific phenomena through photography.
Changing New York series; portraits of James Joyce and Jean Cocteau