Friday, March 15
10:00 a.m. PT
Speakers: Sarah M. Miller, Ph.D., Professor of Art History, Mills College at Northeastern University
MOPA@SDMA Joan and Irwin Jacobs Theater

The San Diego Museum of Art Docent Council is excited to welcome Sarah M. Miller, Ph.D., who will explore how photographer Berenice Abbott’s unique theory of documentary photography was shaped by her experience amidst Europe’s photographic avant-gardes and her collaboration with American art critic Elizabeth McCausland. Abbott put this theory into practice in her WPA-sponsored project Changing New York (1935-39). But when she published the project in book form in 1939, it was subjected to editorial censorship that made it impossible for readers understand its scope, creativity, message, and political implications. Having recently reconstructed the photographer’s suppressed original manuscript for the book, Miller will discuss what it reveals not only about Abbott’s sophisticated photography and her analysis of New York’s built environment, but also about 1930s contests over the very meaning of “documentary.”

See works by Berenice Abbott after the lecture in Berenice Abbott: Changing New York, on view at The San Diego Museum of Art in Gallery 14/15 with entry near the Panama 66 restaurant.

Please note, this lecture is in-person only and held at the state-of-the-art MOPA@SDMA Joan and Irwin Jacobs Theater in Balboa Park.

$10 members and students | $15 seniors and military | $20 nonmembers

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This lecture is presented as a part of the Guest Lecture Series, which focuses on works of art on view in the Museum as well as topics of interest in the broader art world. Lectures are followed by docent-led virtual tours.

Sponsored by The San Diego Museum of Art Docent Council.

Featured: Berenice Abbott, Metropolitan Life Building, New York (detail), ca. 1935. Gelatin silver print. Gift of Cam and Wanda Garner, 2020.340. © Berenice Abbott/Getty Images, Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.