Djuna Barnes

Berenice Abbott

1925 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

Abbott lived with the American writer Djuna Barnes when she moved from Ohio to Greenwich Village in 1918, and the two women remained friends, and occasional romantic rivals, throughout their lives. In this portrait, made in Man Ray’s Paris studio, Barnes is elegantly attired and addresses the camera with a smoldering gaze above a slight smile. A decade later, Barnes would publish Nightwood (1936), a classic of lesbian fiction inspired by her tormented affair with the American artist Thelma Wood (1901–1970), who also had a brief relationship with Abbott.

Artist

Berenice Abbott

Date

1925

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, Joyce and Robert Menschel Gift, 1987