A portrait of Berenice Abbott. Photo by Todd Watts In 1974, Todd Watts drove from New York City to Blanchard, Maine. Renowned photographer Berenice Abbott had hired him for the summer to make prints.
She had moved out of the city years before, for health reasons, and he found her house on the bank of the Piscataquis River. The petite woman opened the door and pronounced her judgment. WHAT: “Berenice Abbott’s Greenwich Village” WHERE: Monson Arts Gallery, 8 Greenville Road, Monson WHEN: Through Sept.
15 HOURS: 10 a.m. to 5 p.
m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.
to 6 p.m. Saturday, noon to 5 p.
m. Sunday INFO: For more information, visit monsonarts.org or call 207-997-2070.
“Too tall, too male and too much of a know-it-all,” she said to Watts, who is also a photographer. “Come in.” That brusque introduction was the beginning of a working relationship that lasted until Abbott died in 1991.
At the end of that summer, Watts bought the property next door to Abbott; he now lives there full time and hosts a photography residency through Monson Arts. He is an important steward of her legacy and facilitated an exhibition of her pictures, up through Sept. 15 at Monson Arts Gallery, just a few miles from their houses.
Abbott was famous for documenting New York City, and most of the 30-plus images in the show are from a bygone era in Greenwich Village. The exhibition traveled to Monson from Marlborough Gallery in New York, which is closing its four locations around the world and.