Depeyster Statue, Bowling green, July 23, 1936

A statue of Abraham of Peyster, one of New York’s first governors, stands in the foreground. Bathed in light, it stands out against a skyline of familiar skyscrapers whose dark, slender façades fill the composition’s entire height.

Depeyster Statue, Bowling Green, July 23, 1936, is from "Changing New York", the huge project that photgrapher Berenice Abbott worked on between 1935 and 1939. Her goal was to draw the most exhaustive and objective portrait possible of the metropolis, which was undergoing a metamorphosis. Calling herself a documentary as well as an artistic photographer, she multiplied original points of view, innovated with framing and favoured shallow depths, as in this photograph, to record New York’s conquest of height.

Depeyster Statue, Bowling Green, July 23, 1936 was presented for the first time by the Pinault Collection at the 2019 show "Luogo e Segni" ("Place and Signs") at the Punta della Dogana in Venice.