Self-Portrait

Berenice Abbott

ca. 1930 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

By warping the paper under the enlarger Abbott so emphasized her eyes that she looks like a cat. Her fascination with photography's flexible inscription of reality overrode vanity, but the distorted face is still recognizably hers--described at the time as "a face with no edges, boy's cut hair, and kewpie eyes."

Artist

Berenice Abbott

Date

ca. 1930

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987