Works in the collection represent Abbott's most important themes: portraits of artists and intellectuals; documentary views of New York City; and illustrations of scientific principles.

Originally a student of painting and sculpture, Abbott traveled to Paris in the 1920s, where she learned photography as an assistant to Man Ray and opened her own photographic studio. Abbott gained a reputation as an insightful portraitist, photographing the artists and intellectuals of Europe's cultural elite. Her images of Jean Cocteau, Janet Flanner, James Joyce, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Peggy Guggenheim, and others, were sold to French Vogue and other publications. She met Eugene Atget shortly before his death in 1927, made the only known portraits of him, and was instrumental in rescuing his work and promoting it.

Returning to New York in 1929, Abbott was struck by the changes brought about by the second great skyscraper building boom. New 1,000 foot towers crowded the narrow streets of the financial district and fanned out from Grand Central Terminal in midtown. At first independently and then with support from the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration and the Museum of the City of New York, Abbott set out to "make a documentary interpretation of New York City." Photographing skyscrapers and elevated trains, street peddlers and storefronts, she mapped the city from Wall Street and the South Street districts to Harlem and the outer boroughs. Between 1935 and 1939 Abbott produced in excess of one thousand 8" x 10" negatives for the project she would later call Changing New York. Upon completion the series included 305 photographs supported by historical data compiled by Abbott's staff of researchers.

Her third major concentration involved creating photographs to illustrate scientific principles; many of these have great photographic beauty in addition to their scientific interest.

The images included in the collection are taken from two portfolios—Faces of the 20s and Retrospective—that were printed by the artists and published by Parasol Press in the late 70s and early 80s. They are gifts of Vito S. Portera, Milton E. Feldman, Robert A. Feldman ('58), Kenneth Blackman, and Michael B. Targoff.