Wall Street "Abyss," New York
1936
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
overall: 28.1 x 18.8 cm (11 1/16 x 7 3/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Ilse Bing Wolff
Accession Number
2001.147.68
Art Historical Context
Ilse Bing, often hailed as the "Queen of the Leica" for her pioneering use of the compact 35mm camera, *Wall Street "Abyss New York* in 1936. This gelatin silver print, a crisp black-and-white medium prized for its rich tonal range and fine detail, depicts the towering canyons of Manhattan's financial district during the lingering shadow of the Great Depression. Shot from a low angle, the image transforms the bustling street into a vertiginous void—an "abyss" of steel and shadow—evoking both economic precariousness and urban sublime. Bing's street photography style, influenced by her European...
About the Artist
Ilse Bing
Ilse Bing, born on March 23, 1899, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, into a prosperous Jewish merchant family, grew up immersed in music and art. The daughter of Louis Bing and Johanna Elli Bing (née Katz), she pursued studies in mathematics and physics at the University of Frankfurt starting in 1920, later shifting to art history and architecture. A semester at Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Institut in...