Berenice Abbott - Van De Graaff Generator, Cambridge/MA - image-1
Berenice Abbott - Van De Graaff Generator, Cambridge/MA - image-2
Berenice Abbott - Van De Graaff Generator, Cambridge/MA - image-1Berenice Abbott - Van De Graaff Generator, Cambridge/MA - image-2

Lot 556 D

Berenice Abbott - Van De Graaff Generator, Cambridge/MA

Auction 1246 - overview Cologne
04.06.2024, 14:00 - Photography
Estimate: 5.000 € - 6.000 €
Result: 7.560 € (incl. premium)
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Berenice Abbott

Van De Graaff Generator, Cambridge/MA
1958

Gelatin silver print, printed later. 93.5 x 74.2 cm. Mounted to cardboard, signed and editioned in pencil below the image on the mount. Photographer's stamp and annotated in an unknown hand in pencil on the verso. Printer's print. - Framed under glass.

The electrostatic generators developed by MIT physicist Robert Jemison Van de Graaf (1901-1967) play a role in the early history of nuclear research. The photographer describes the photographic process as follows: "Housed in a dome-topped building about four stories high was the Van de Graaf Generator at MIT, looking like a giant Leyden jar. I walked around it with one photo lamp, swinging it up and down and around literally modeling it with light as best I could. I guessed at the exposure and made only one negative." (Ron Kurtz, op.cit., p. 48)

Literature

Berenice Abbott. Vol. 1: Portraits. The American Scene. Science, Göttingen 2008, ill. p. 219; Ron Kurtz (ed.), Documenting Science, Göttingen 2012, ill. p. 49