Ossian Brown Haunted Air

  As a collector of vintage photography with a penchant for the curious, horrific, and sometimes downright traumatic, it is no surprise that I gravitated to Ossian Brown‘s book Haunted Air published by Jonathan Cape in 2011. There also appears to be a new 2022 edition available. I am reviewing the book now as it […]

“The Shaping of New Visions: Photography, Film, Photobook” at MoMA (2013)

  Berenice Abbott. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman. Negative c. 1930/Distortion c. 1950 The Shaping of New Visions: Photography, Film, Photobook at MoMA through April 21, 2013 By Lew Schwartz, ASX NYC, February 2013 There are a few ways to view “New Visions,” and, unfortunately the heady text that introduces the show on the […]

BERENICE ABBOTT: “PHOTOGRAPHY AT THE CROSSROADS (EXCERPTS)” (1951)

Under the El at the Bowery, New York, c. 1950 By Berenice Abbott, excerpts from Universal Photo Almanac, 1951 The world today has been conditioned, overwhelmingly, to visualize. The picture has almost replaced the word as a means of communication. Tabloids, educational and documentary films, popular movies, magazines, and television surround us. It almost seems […]

Berenice Abbott – The Photographer of New York City

Berenice Abbott can be considered the photographer of New York City. A revolutionary documentary photographer, Abbott was born in Springfield, Ohio, in 1898, and studied for one year at Ohio State University, Columbus, before moving to New York in 1918.