Graham and Metropolitan Avenues, Brooklyn, New York, 1937

Graham and Metropolitan Avenues, Brooklyn, New York, 1937 realistically depicts a busy shopping intersection, typical of the area in the 1930s. The web of power lines cutting across the sky gives the photograph’s upper part an almost abstract dimension.

This photograph is part of "Changing New York", the huge project that occupied American photographer Berenice Abbott from 1935 to 1939. Her aim was to draw the most exhaustive portrait possible of the metropolis, then undergoing a metamorphosis, with the help of her camera alone. Wanting to create a social and artistic work at the same time, she set out to document, with great freedom of framing, New Yorkers’ daily lives in their urban context.

Graham and Metropolitan Avenues, Brooklyn, New York, 1937 was first presented by the Pinault Collection at the 2019 "Luogo e Segni" ("Place and Signs") show at the Punta della Dogana in Venice.