An Age of Change: The Works of American Photographer James Abbe, 1910-1950

Description

Photographer James Abbe captured a nation in transition, and the new exhibition An Age of Change highlights how American people, ideals, and culture transformed over the first half of the twentieth century through his lens. A fantastic exhibition to reflect on U.S. history during the upcoming 250th anniversary!

As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, James Abbe’s early twentieth century photographs offer a striking window into a nation coming of age. Working largely between 1910-1950, Abbe chronicled a country defined by transformation, capturing the energy of its people, life-changing events, and the cultural shifts that reflected a modern America and world in motion.

James Abbe (1883-1974) was a pioneering American photographer and journalist whose images that helped define a century. An innovative stage and silent film photographer in New York City and Hollywood in the teens and early 1920s, Abbe photographed stars like Charlie Chaplin, Fred Astaire, and Fanny Brice, as well as the behind-the-scenes workers that brought their films to life. Between the World Wars, his lens captured famous Americans like President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, and Jane Addams while still revealing the realities of everyday people across America. And, during World War II, Abbe photographed notorious dictators like Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin and showed the realities of wartime: images that, through their contrasts, highlighted the U.S.’s goals of freedom, ambition, and optimism at home.

Abbe’s work bridges art and documentation, revealing how photography shaped the public’s understanding of identity, progress, and power. His images reflect a time when technology, industry, and culture collided, forever changing how Americans saw themselves and their nation. Seen through the lens of the 250th anniversary, these images ask: how has the United States evolved, and how do we continue to define the ideals we set forth in 1776?

An Age of Change: The Works of American Photographer James Abbe, 1910-1950 is organized by the James Abbe Archive, Jenny Abbe, Julie Fry of Dot to Dot Consulting, and Exhibit Envoy, a 501c3nonprofit.