Frame House, Bedford and Grove Streets, Manhattan, May 12, 1936
1936
Silver print
25.3 x 20.3 cm (9 15/16 x 8 in.)
Frame House, Bedford and Grove Streets, Manhattan, May 12, 1936 depicts a simple corner house with a clapboard façade and a fire escape typical of New York’s vernacular architecture. It is not, however, frozen, for it also includes a discreet group of two children led by a woman, bringing a certain vitality to the composition.
Despite its subject’s apparent banality, this shot acquires programmatic value once placed in the context of the ambitious photography project with which it is associated: "Changing New York" by Berenice Abbott. The photographer spent five years from 1935 to 1939 chronicling the American metropolis, then in the midst of upheaval. She wanted her work "to be documentary as well as artistic.” The resulting, singular aesthetics aim, with the greatest possible objectivity, to place the photographed building in the bustling context of everyday life, including passers-by and onlookers entering the frame.
Frame House, Bedford and Grove Streets, Manhattan, May 12, 1936 was first presented by the Pinault Collection at the 2019 "Luogo e Segni" (“Place and Signs”) show at the Punta della Dogana in Venice.
Despite its subject’s apparent banality, this shot acquires programmatic value once placed in the context of the ambitious photography project with which it is associated: "Changing New York" by Berenice Abbott. The photographer spent five years from 1935 to 1939 chronicling the American metropolis, then in the midst of upheaval. She wanted her work "to be documentary as well as artistic.” The resulting, singular aesthetics aim, with the greatest possible objectivity, to place the photographed building in the bustling context of everyday life, including passers-by and onlookers entering the frame.
Frame House, Bedford and Grove Streets, Manhattan, May 12, 1936 was first presented by the Pinault Collection at the 2019 "Luogo e Segni" (“Place and Signs”) show at the Punta della Dogana in Venice.
Exhibitions
© Getty Images
