Berenice Abbott, Exhibition, Fundación MAPFRE, Barcelona: 20 February-19 May 2019

Though she is best known for her portraits, Berenice Abbott (July 17, 1898 – December 9, 1991) was one of the photographers who most effectively portrayed the transformations of New York in the mid-20th century, a time when the city became the emblem of a new way of understanding urban architecture and the epitome of modern society.

Abbott spent two years in Europe studying sculpture; during that time (and after becoming Man Ray's assistant), she portrayed many characters from the intellectual and literary scene during her stay in Paris, including James Joyce and Jean Cocteau.

The exhibition offers a very thorough 'tour' through the career of this American photographer, whose work has become one of the most captivating of North American photography in the first half of the 20th century and acts as a bridge between the Parisian avant-garde and the New York of the 1920s and 1930s.

Produced by Fundación MAPFRE, it is the largest retrospective exhibition of Berenice Abbott's work ever to be organized in Spain and it presents vintage photographs from major collections such as The New York Public Library, the George Eastman Museum (Rochester, New York), the Howard Greenberg Gallery (New York), the International Center of Photography (New York), the MIT Museum (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and the Museum of the City of New York (New York).

Fundación MAPFRE 

Casa Garriga i Nogués, Diputació, 250, 08007 Barcelona