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DescriptionAn original silver gelatin photograph print by noted American photographer, Berenice Abbott, of Lavina Faulkingham of Washington County, Maine. The photograph was taken in about 1960. Little is known about Lavina Faulkingham at this point. Berencie Abbott was one of the most important American photographers of the 20th century. Born in Springfield, Ohio in 1898, she moved to New York City in 1918. There she connected with Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, leaders of the American avant-garde. Three years later she moved to Paris where she master the art of photography while serving as an assistant at the Man Ray Studio. In 1926, she had her first solo show of her photography in Paris. It was while at the Man Ray Studio, that Abbott first saw the photographs of Eugene Atget and after Atget’s death in 1927, she worked with Julien Levy of New York City to acquire most of Atget’s negatives and prints. She would bring these negatives and prints with her on her return to New York City in 1929, preserving them there in an archive, and promoting Atget’s work for years to come. With the onset of the Great Depression, Abbott began to document the life of New York City through her photography, an effort that resulted in 1939 in a traveling exhibition and accompanying book, Changing New York. In the early 1960s, Abbott moved to Maine that she had grown to love and settled in the small town of Monson in the Maine North Woods. She soon developed an extended series of photographs documenting life in Maine. This new body of work was published 1968 in her book, Portrait of Maine, done in collaboration with writer, Chenoweth Hall. The Tides Institute acquired Abbott’s photograph of Lavina Faulkingham from the Aucocisco Galleries of Portland, Maine in 2004. Photo caption: Original silver gelatin photograph print by noted American photographer, Berenice Abbott, of Lavina Faulkingham of Washington County, Maine. The photograph was taken in about 1960. Artist: Berenice Abbott Medium: Photograph Classification: Photographs Old Accession Number: 184