Accession Number
2008/2.272

Title
Seventh Avenue Looking North from 35th Street, Manhattan

Artist(s)
Berenice Abbott

Artist Nationality
American (North American)

Object Creation Date
1935

Medium & Support
gelatin silver print on paper

Dimensions
20 in x 15 15/16 in (50.8 cm x 40.48 cm);20 in x 15 15/16 in (50.8 cm x 40.48 cm);9 9/16 in x 7 1/2 in (24.29 cm x 19.05 cm)

Credit Line
Gift of Ellen and William Kahn

Label copy
Recent Acquisitions: Curators Choice Part I, November 12, 2011-March 18, 2012
Berenice Abbott
United States, 1896–1991
Seventh Avenue Looking North from 35th Street, New York
1936
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Ellen and William Kahn, 2008/2.272

Subject matter
Berenice Abbott was very precise in her description of this photograph, articulating the direction of her angle, the location of her camera, and even identifying the surrounding buildings. The photograph itself offers a different experience of New York City, from an angle so high up that the specificity of the location seems beside the point. Instead, Abbott's birds-eye view reduces the skyscrapers and bustling midtown traffic into dots and rectangles. This geometric order is dynamically bisected by the street, which leads the eye from the lower right to upper left corner of the image. A particularly nice detail is the light reflected on the building in the foreground, which hugs the perimeter of the structure and reiterates the line of the street below.

Physical Description
View down at 7th Avenue, looking north, from the 46-story Nelson Tower at 450 Seventh Avenue.

Primary Object Classification
Photograph

Collection Area
Photography

Rights
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit http://umma.umich.edu/request-image for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.

Keywords
cast shadows
cityscapes (representations)
documentary photography
high-rise buildings
skyscrapers