The Realisms of Berenice Abbott

“Terri Weissman’s book provides both a complex and compelling interpretation of Abbott’s brand of realism and one of the most thorough analyses of her five decade-long career. Culling a wealth of primary materials from scattered archives and deftly integrating previous scholarship, Weissman reveals that Abbott’s evolving conception of realism was not merely based on a naive modernist belief in the objectivity of the photograph. Rather, Abbott, utilising the pedagogical and political possibilities of photography along with text and display methods, practiced and espoused a ‘type of production that was both communicatively oriented and aware of its own representational limits’. . . . Weissman’s book is an invaluable addition to the growing scholarship over the past decade on individual documentary photographers. . . . [It] is sure to provide a model for future scholarship on both historical and contemporary photography.”

— History Of Photography

“A fine book. . . . Accounts for the look of Abbott’s photographs in a way no one has done before.”

— Oxford Art Journal

“From a wealth of primary material, much of it long buried in archives and libraries, Weissman has created a fine documentary. Abbott’s life, her ideas of herself and of the political and social world around her, and her singular vision of the interaction of these are all presented with clear prose and scholarly consideration. Photography fans will find much here.”

— Library Journal

“Weissman offers a scholarly study that contributes importantly to a revaluing of the central works of the venerable yet undervalued American photographer Berenice Abbott.”

— Choice