{
"data": {
"id": 156531,
"accession_number": "1992.241",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Under the El, c. 1932. Berenice Abbott (American, 1898\u20131991). Gelatin silver print; image: 19.9 x 24.4 cm (7 13/16 x 9 5/8 in.); matted: 40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Edwin R. and Harriet Pelton Perkins Memorial Fund, 1992.241. \u00a9 Berenice Abbott/Getty Images",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Under the El",
"creation_date": "c. 1932",
"creation_date_earliest": 1927,
"creation_date_latest": 1937,
"artists_tags": [
"female",
"LGBTQ+ (after 1900)"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "gelatin silver print",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Photography",
"collection": "PH - American 1900-1950",
"type": "Photograph",
"measurements": "Image: 19.9 x 24.4 cm (7 13/16 x 9 5/8 in.); Matted: 40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"image": {
"height": 0.199,
"width": 0.244
},
"matted": {
"height": 0.406,
"width": 0.508
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 Berenice Abbott/Getty Images",
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Written in pencil on recto: \"BERENICE ABBOTT\"",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 311552,
"title": "Selected Acquisitions",
"description": "Selected Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 9-April 11, 1993).",
"opening_date": "1993-02-09T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 311875,
"title": "Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997).",
"opening_date": "1996-11-24T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 299125,
"title": "From Riches to Rags: American Photography in the Depression",
"description": "From Riches to Rags: American Photography in the Depression. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 13-December 31, 2017).",
"opening_date": "2017-08-13T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Main Gallery Rotation (Gallery 229): April 14, 2014 - November 7, 2014.",
"opening_date": "2014-04-14T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Yasuo Kuniyoshi",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"description": "Best known for New York architectural scenes, Abbott sometimes photographed the city\u2019s inhabitants like this \u201cBowery Bum,\u201d the alternative title that Abbott used for this image. The term was used to describe the people who flocked to the Bowery, a Lower East Side street and neighborhood that became the city\u2019s skid row. This man sleeps in the shade of the elevated train that ran above the Bowery.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79945993"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Turner, Evan H. \u201cThe Year in Review for 1992.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38\u201379.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 67, no. 70",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25161388"
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 73",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1992.241",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Edwin R. and Harriet Pelton Perkins Memorial Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 156531,
"creators": [
{
"id": 11,
"description": "Berenice Abbott (American, 1898\u20131991)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Berenice Abbott American, 1898-1991 Berenice Abbott was one of the most accomplished documentary photographers of the 20th century. The Springfield, Ohio, native also achieved recognition for her critical role in preserving and promoting the work of French photographer Eug\u00e8ne Atget. Abbott learned photography during the 1920s while serving as an assistant in Man Ray's Paris studio. In 1926 she opened her own portrait studio, photographing many of the artists and intellectuals then living in Paris, including Atget and James Joyce. Following Atget's death in 1927, Abbott was instrumental in preserving his prints and negatives and in bringing his work to public attention through exhibitions and publications. In 1929, the year that Abbott returned to the United States, her photographs were included in the important exhibition Film und Foto in Stuttgart. Once back in the U.S., Abbott opened a portrait studio in New York City and undertook an ambitious project to document the city's rapidly changing landscape. In 1935 she received assistance from the wpa Federal Arts Project, and two years later images from her study were exhibited at the Museum of the City of New York. In 1939 her photographs were featured in Changing New York, a book with accompanying text by critic Elizabeth McCausland. It was also during the 1930s that Abbott began teaching at the New School for Social Research, a position she held until 1958. In the 1940s Abbott published a manual of photographic instruction, A Guide to Better Photography (1941), as well as a book of photographs taken from 1947-48, Greenwich Village Today and Yesterday (1949). Her photographic subject matter broadened to include scientific phenomena, particularly physical and chemical reactions, an interest she pursued throughout the 1950s. American landscapes, however, continued to be a source of inspiration. In 1954 Abbott traveled U.S. Route 1 from Florida to Maine, photographing small towns encountered along the way. Throughout her long career, Abbott's work was exhibited widely, beginning with a 1926 Paris show at the avant-garde gallery Au Sacre du Printemps. Over the years she participated in numerous group exhibitions as well as in one-person shows at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1970), the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego (1984), and the New York Public Library (1989). M.M.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1898",
"death_year": "1991",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1992-12-07T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1927,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1932",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-03-27 00:00:24.355000"
}
}