Embracing the Parallax: Berenice Abbott and Elizabeth McCausland
Press Release by The Heckscher Museum of Art, USA
Left: Berenice Abbott, Elizabeth McCausland at her printing press, ca. 1935. Elizabeth McCausland papers, 1838–1995. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Right: Berenice Abbott and her camera. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Embracing the Parallax: Berenice Abbott and Elizabeth McCausland
February 2 – March 30, 2025
at The Heckscher Museum of Art, USA
The exhibition offers new understanding of the key partnership in the pivotal Changing New York book, finally reuniting Abbott’s photographs with McCausland’s original text.
Huntington, NY — Embracing the Parallax: Berenice Abbott and Elizabeth McCausland will highlight twenty-two gelatin silver prints from the collection with a focus on photographs from the important Changing New York series of the 1930s.
The celebrated photobook Changing New York (1939) was a collaboration between photographer Berenice Abbott (1898–1991) and her lifelong romantic partner, art critic and writer Elizabeth McCausland (1899–1965). Although recognized by art historians as a pivotal text of documentary photography, the published product was radically different from what the two women had envisioned.
“Abbott and McCausland wanted to redefine documentary photography’s function by examining transformation through the lens of a rapidly modernizing New York City. Instead, their publisher diluted their message, producing a tourist guidebook for visitors to the 1939 New York World’s Fair,” explained Jessica Rosen, Curatorial Assistant, who organized the exhibition. Embracing the Parallax offers a new understanding of the women’s partnership by reuniting several of Abbott’s photographs with portions of McCausland’s original text.
Berenice Abbott, West Street, 1936. Silver gelatin print, The Heckscher Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. Morton Brozinsky, 1985.2.9.
The word parallax refers to an optical phenomenon where the position of an object appears to shift when observed from different viewpoints—whether it be a shift between the camera’s viewfinder and lens, or a shift in one’s perspective.
Rather than simply documenting modernization from the perspective of aesthetic shifts, Abbott and McCausland intended to capture the invisible social, economic, and political factors that catalyzed these changes in the built environment. They believed that documentary photography was a tool to initiate dialogue and foster civic responsibility. “We cannot go on just looking at things on the surface,” Abbott said. “Real things today are conflict, contradictions, warfare, unbalance, lack of order, lack of reason—contrasts in a rapidly changing civilization.” Abbott and McCausland’s philosophy of photography demands that we relearn how to see.
As part of the Heckscher’s 2025 Pride initiative, this exhibition raises questions about the politics of visibility and invisibility by examining Abbott’s and McCausland’s intellectual partnership and romantic relationship. Abbott and McCausland’s collaborative projects demonstrate how documentary photography can be used as a tool to foster civic responsibility by exposing the invisible factors that shape our world.
About The Heckscher Museum of Art
The Heckscher Museum of Art is in its second century as a source of art and inspiration on Long Island. Founded by philanthropists Anna and August Heckscher in 1920, the Museum’s collection comprises 2,300 artworks spanning the nineteenth century to the present. The Museum is committed to growing the collection to develop public awareness for the artists whose careers and life experiences can broaden our understanding of the past, foster community connections to the present, and create diverse possibilities for the future. Located in scenic Heckscher Park in Huntington, NY, the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Continuing the legacy of the founders, free admission to the Museum for 2025 is supported through a generous grant from Bank of America. Heckscher.org
Images
Sponsored by Susan Van Scoy, Ph.D., Brian Katz & Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP. This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Related Link
Art Book – Berenice Abbott: A Life in Photography by Julia Van Haaften (2018)