{{short description|American photographer}} {{Use mdy dates|date=November 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Kathryn Abbe<!-- include middle initial, if not specified in birth_name --> | image =Kathryn Abbe.png | alt = | caption = Abbe at her house in 2005 | birth_name = Kathryn McLaughlin | birth_date = {{Birth date|1919|09|22}} | birth_place = Brooklyn, New York City, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|2014|01|18|1919|09|22}} | death_place = | education = Photography degree, 1941 | alma_mater = Pratt Institute, New School for Social Research | occupation = Photographer | employer = ''Vogue'', freelance photography | known_for = Photographs in ''Vogue'', ''Better Homes and Gardens'', ''McCall's'', ''Parents'', and ''Good Housekeeping''; a book, ''Twins on Twins,'' written with her twin sister | relatives = Frances McLaughlin-Gill<BR>(twin sister)<BR>Tomie dePaola (cousin) | awards = Prix de Paris, 1941 | spouse = James Abbe Jr. (m. 1946) | children = 3 }} '''Kathryn Abbe''' (September 22, 1919 – January 18, 2014) was an American photographer.<ref name="EHS">{{cite news|url=http://www.easthamptonstar.com/Obituaries/2014123/Kathryn-Abbe-Photographer|title=Kathryn Abbe, Photographer|last=Karitevlis|first=Chris|date=January 23, 2014|publisher=The East Hampton Star|access-date=January 24, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140405215419/http://easthamptonstar.com/Obituaries/2014123/Kathryn-Abbe-Photographer|archive-date=April 5, 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref>
==Early life and education==
Kathryn Abbe was born Kathryn McLaughlin in 1919, in Brooklyn. Her twin sister was photographer Frances McLaughlin-Gill. They were raised in Wallingford, Connecticut, and were the valedictorian and salutatorian of their graduating class at Lyman Hall High School. Abbe attended the Pratt Institute, where she studied under Walter Civardi and painter Reginald Marsh; she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1941. She also attended the New School for Social Research from 1939 until 1941, where she studied under Yasuo Kuniyoshi. In 1946, she married photographer James Abbe Jr., the son of the Hollywood photographer James Abbe. The couple had three children. She and her sister were the cousins of artist Tomie dePaola.<ref name=Gale>{{cite book|title=Abbe, Kathryn (1919—)|year=2002|publisher=Gale Research|location=Farmington Hills|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-2591300045.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140611024008/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-2591300045.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2014-06-11}}</ref>
==Career== Abbe won ''Vogue'' magazine's Prix de Paris photography award in 1941. By 1942, she was working for ''Vogue'' under Toni Frissell; she left the magazine and became a professional freelance photographer in 1944 – one of few women to hold the position at the time.<ref name=Gale/> Although in the 1940s she photographed New England and Brooklyn extensively,<ref name=Christel>{{cite web|last=Christel|first=Tammy|title=Art Observatory: Vintage Photographs & New Developments|url=http://www.planetjh.com/news/A_100045.aspx|work=News|publisher=JH Weekly|access-date=December 29, 2012|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20130131083436/http://www.planetjh.com/news/A_100045.aspx|archivedate=January 31, 2013}}</ref> by the mid-1940s her assignments took her around the world, notably to Paris, Havana, New York, Rome and Milan. Her subjects often included fashion icons, entertainment personalities, children, street vignettes, and artists.<ref name=NYWiF/> Her photographs of Carmen Dell'Orefice and Lisa Fonssagrives are particularly striking.<ref name=Herman>{{cite web|last=Herman|first=Jane|title=Photography: Double Vision|url=http://www.vogue.com/culture/article/vd-photography-double-vision/#1|work=Culture|publisher=Vogue|access-date=December 29, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120112130914/http://www.vogue.com/culture/article/vd-photography-double-vision/#1|archive-date=January 12, 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> Her work was published in over eighty books and international periodicals, among them, ''Better Homes and Gardens'', ''McCall's'', ''Cosmopolitan'', ''Good Housekeeping'', ''Paris Match'', and ''Vogue''. She was awarded more than twenty major magazine covers – a rare achievement for a female photographer of her time.
A co-author of three books, ''Stars of the Twenties Observed by James Abbe'' (1974), ''Twins on Twins'', (with her twin sister, 1980), and ''Twin Lives in Photography'' (2011), Abbe lectured extensively and appeared on many television programs, among them, the ''Dick Cavett Show''.<ref name=Gale/> A 2000 documentary, ''Twin Lenses'', was produced about the lives and careers of Kathryn Abbe and Frances McLaughlin–Gill.<ref name=NYWiF>{{cite web|title=Twin Lenses screening|url=http://www.nywift.org/newsletter.aspx?id=1594|publisher=New York Women in Film & Television|access-date=December 29, 2012}}</ref><ref name=Leake>{{cite web|last=Leake|first=Carol|title=Pioneering twin fashion photographers, Kathryn Abbe and Frances McLaughlin–Gill, "Self Portrait", 1980|url=http://photos.nola.com/photogallery/2010/03/pioneering_twin_fashion_photog.html|publisher=The Times-Picaynne|access-date=December 29, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304023524/http://photos.nola.com/photogallery/2010/03/pioneering_twin_fashion_photog.html|archive-date=March 4, 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== *{{cite book|last1=Corbett|first1=Cynthia Arps|title=Useful art: Long Island pottery|date=1985|publisher=Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities|location=Setauket, L.I., N.Y.|isbn=0939432005}} *{{cite book|last1=Rosenblum|first1=Naomi|title=A History of Women Photographers|date=2014|location=Abbeville, New York|isbn=9780789212245|pages=432|edition=Third}} *{{cite book |last1=Abbe |first1=Kathryn |title=Twin lives in photography |publisher=New York : Abbe-Gill Press, 2011.}}
==External links== *[http://www.kathrynabbe.com/index.html Official website] *[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940CE1D6163CF934A35752C1A9629C8B63 "ART REVIEWS; Preserving the Island's Artifacts, and Classic Images"] from ''The New York Times'' *[http://easthamptonstar.com/Obituaries/2014123/Kathryn-Abbe-Photographer About Kathryn Abbe] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140405215419/http://easthamptonstar.com/Obituaries/2014123/Kathryn-Abbe-Photographer |date=April 5, 2014 }} *[https://www.vogue.com/article/vd-photography-double-vision Vogue: Kathryn Abbe]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Abbe, Kathryn}} Category:1919 births Category:2014 deaths Category:20th-century American women photographers Category:20th-century American photographers Category:20th-century American women writers Category:21st-century American women photographers Category:21st-century American photographers Category:21st-century American women writers Category:American twins Category:People from Wallingford, Connecticut Category:Photographers from Connecticut Category:Photographers from New York City Category:Pratt Institute alumni Category:The New School alumni Category:Vogue (magazine) people Category:Writers from Brooklyn Category:Writers from New Haven County, Connecticut