ArtsConnectEd/ArtsNet Minnesota
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Art and Artists
 Berenice Abbott
 Giovanni Canal
 Frank Gehry
 Marsden Hartley
 Louis Lozowick
 Mexico (Nayarit)
 David Nash
 Georgia O'Keeffe
 Vincent van Gogh

 Inner Worlds What is Art?   Identity Designing Spaces and Places
Berenice Abbott
Discussion Questions/Activities

Abbott, Murray Hill Spiral
Berenice Abbott,
Murray Hill Hotel: Spiral

Make a list of words that describe the lines and/or shapes that you see in Murray Hill Hotel: Spiral. Which types of lines/shapes do you find in older building styles? Which do you find in modern styles? Why do you think this is so?
Abbott, Broadway to the Battery Look carefully at the photograph Broadway to the Battery. How many of these questions can you answer from looking at this photograph?
  • What season of the year is it?
  • Which direction was Berenice Abbott facing when she took this picture? (You may need to look at a map of New York City)
  • What time of day is it?
  • What New York landmarks can you identify?
  • What is the name of the ship in the harbor?
Berenice Abbott,
Broadway to the
Battery

Use historical photographs of your community to compare the past with the present. Look at an older picture of a main street in your town and compare it with how the street looks today. Take photographs to document the ways your town has changed.

References

Zwingle, Erla. "A Life of Her Own."

Sundell, Michael G. Berenice Abbott: Documentary Photographs if the 1930s. The New Gallery of Contemporary Art, 1980

Abbott, Berenice. Changing New York. New York: Dutton, 1939 (printed as New York in the Thirties. New York: Dover, 1973).

Vocabulary Terms
modern, modernism--In art history, this term refers to the philosophies of art made in Europe and the United States during a period roughly from the 1860s through the 1970s when certain artists began to take radical steps away from traditional art in order to be deliberately different from the dominant, official taste. Modern art or modernism is characterized by changing attitudes about art, an interest in contemporary events as subjects, personal artistic expression, and freedom from realism. Modernism can be seen as artists' attempts to come to terms with the urban, industrial and secular society that emerged during the 19th century in Western society.

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Inner Worlds | What Is Art? | Environment | Identity | Designing Spaces and Places
About the Art | About the Artist | Discussion Questions/Activities | Teacher Lessons