Description

Both photographs are gelatin silver prints made from the same negative, and both are signed by the artist. The example on the top was made close to the time the picture was taken and is thus what we would term "vintage." Abbott printed the image with a slightly soft focus on a type of photographic paper that has a creamy color and seductive matte surface. The writer Djuna Barnes, Abbott's friend and fellow expatriate in Paris, looks young and beautiful. The example on the bottom, printed on bright, modern paper in the mid-1980s with Abbott's authorization, is cool, hard, and unappealing-and so is its subject. The materials available and the choices made in printing have influenced the appearance—and therefore the meaning—of the photograph. In general, the Museum prefers to collect prints made close to the time of the negative because they most often represent the artist's original intention.