Murray Hill Hotel (from the Retrospective Portfolio)

In Paris Berenic Abbott met and developed a deep admiration for the photographer Eugène Atget. Popular with the Surrealists and other Parisian avant-garde artists, Atget produced comprehensive documentation of the streetscapes and architecture of Paris during a time of rapid change. Atget received posthumous acclaim for this work, due largely to Abbott’s zealous efforts to purchase, catalogue, and archive most of his prints and negatives.

When Abbott returned to America in 1929, she brought the Atget archives with her, soon undertaking a similar project of her own, documenting the city of New York. Initially, under her own steam, and later, with support from the Depression-era Federal Art Project, Abbott produced hundreds of images that documented the transformation of that city, which she published in a book titled Changing New York (E.P. Dutton & Company, New York, 1939).