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Night View

Date
c.1932, printed 1979
Classification
Photographs
Current Location
Not on view
Dimensions
sheet: 13 3/8 x 10 5/8 in. (34 x 27 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Fielding Lewis Holmes in honor of Mr. and Mrs. James N. Wood
Rights
© Berenice Abbott Estate / Courtesy of Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc., New York
Object Number
320:1980.1
NOTES
Light emanates from the countless windows of 20 or more high-rise buildings in this nighttime scene of New York City. Train tracks cut across the lower third of the image, breaking up the insistent verticality of the skyscrapers.

In 1929, Berenice Abbott returned to New York City from studying in Paris, where she was first introduced to photography. Her artistic focus became the dramatically changing landscape of the city, as skyscrapers replaced low-rise buildings and dominated the skylines of metropolitan areas. In this photograph, the bird’s-eye view offered by the skyscrapers themselves provided Abbott with a new and striking perspective of the evolving cityscape.

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