Abbott Discusses Photography At Carpenter Center Lecture

Bernice Abbott, an 81-year-old American photographer, told a Carpenter Center audience yesterday that, as a young artist, she felt photography "was the art of the century," and "a sleeping giant."

Abbott is well known for her portraits of literary figures and Manhattan skyscrapers. She said she originally became interested in photography "by accident."

"At first I just needed a job," Abbott said. "I was more of a guileless fool than anything. My friend Man Ray ran a portrait studio in Paris and wanted an assistant," she added.

After apprenticing with Man Ray, Abbott established her own portrait studio which attracted James Joyce, Jean Cocteau, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and fellow photographer Eugene Atget.

"I tried to capture their characteristic pose or feature," Abbott said. "I used my intuition and took as much time as I needed."

After Atget died in 1927, Abbott located and purchased his glass-plate negatives and prints while supported financially by art dealer and collector Julien Leby '27.

Abbott called herself "an arrogant and narrow-minded critic" of contemporary photography.

"The problem is too much composition. It's ersatz, arty, pretension. You have to take a picture of something you're part of--that holds meaning for you," she added.

Although she taught a class in New York for many years, Abbott never showed her work to her students. "I didn't want any little Abbotts floating around," she said.