Embracing the Parallax: Berenice Abbott and Elizabeth McCausland
February 2, 2025 – March 30, 2025
Embracing the Parallax: Berenice Abbott and Elizabeth McCausland will showcase twenty-two gelatin silver prints from the collection that span key points in the photographer Berenice Abbott’s career, and pair them with the writing of her lifelong romantic partner, art-critic Elizabeth McCausland. Centering photographs and text from the 1939 book Changing New York, this exhibition will unpack Abbott and McCausland’s prolific partnership and explore how it contributed to key moments in the crystallization of modernity. A part of the Heckscher’s 2025 Pride initiative, this exhibition raises questions about the politics of visibility and invisibility by examining Abbott 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 social, economic, and political factors that shape our world.
This exhibition was curated by Jessica Rosen, Curatorial Assistant.
Featured on the Heckscher website is the film, “Berenice Abbott: A View of the 20th Century” by Kay Weaver and Martha Wheelock. Critics place Berenice Abbott at the head of her class; she was one of the greatest American photographers of the 20th Century. Filmed during her 91st and 92nd years, the open-hearted Abbott takes us on a guided tour of her century.