Berenice Abbott, inspired by the work of Eugene Atget (see yesterday’s blog post) begins serious work cataloguing New York in the 1930s, along the way receiving the Federal Art Project sponsorship (1935-39).

She photographs the fish markets, the rag merchants, the foundations of the Rockefeller Centre as it is built, the ziggurat like new skyscrapers, down and outs, workers, railtracks – in such a way that you see the similarity with the opening credits of the classic film Metropolis.

New York 1935, Abbott

Metropolis (1927) Fritz Lang

The city of the future, imagined.

The Commerce Graphics Ltd Inc website shows her work in 4 different areas: Portrait, New York, Science and American Landscape.

Each area has a short description and then a slideshow of her intriguing, thoughtful black and white images.  Worth looking at.  The photos on this page of her work are just a couple of the ones they have.