Michael L. Abramson (1948-2011) was an American photographer best known for his striking black and white photographs documenting the vibrant nightlife of Chicago's South side during the mid-1970s. Their framing and mood evoke the energy and imagery captured by Brassaï in Paris during the early decades of the 20th century.

Abramson’s lush photographs earned him, fresh out of graduate school, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1978. Over five decades later, the images, now imbued with historical significance, were featured in a beautiful multimedia package called Light: On the South Side (Numero Group, 2009), which included a hardbound book of over 100 of the South Side prints and two LPs of the blues music likely playing in the various clubs at the time the photographs were taken (video here). Produced and distributed by the recording company, Numero Group, Light On the South Side became a two-time Grammy nominee , resulting in unique acclaim for a photographer.

In another multimedia release, City Files Press published Gotta Go Gotta Flow (2015), which perfectly paired the South side images with slam poetry by the acclaimed writer Patricia Smith.

In addition to his South Side portfolio, Abramson also explored on Chicago’s North side, ballrooms and dance halls. A subsequent project was to attend a Camera Night event for amateur photographers at a local strip club. Abramson found the men taking the photos of the women were more interesting than the strippers themselves. These images can be found in Men Looking at Women in the 70s (Hoxton Mini Press, 2017).

More recently Abramson’s photographs have been prominently featured at museums in Paris and Amsterdam, and soon to be in Munich and Antwerp, in a traveling group exhibit celebrating 50 years of disco music and culture.

Abramson loved to travel, and among his many photos taken abroad are those from a 2003 trip to Cuba, where he documented that country’s citizens, cars, and housing.

From the 1980s until he died in 2011, Michael was a freelance photographer, whose work was regularly featured in Time, Newsweek, Bloomberg, Forbes, Fortune magazines, and other national news outlets. His subjects included Stephen Spielberg, Ann Landers, Ron Howard, Bill Clinton, and Oprah.

Today Abramson’s photographs can be found in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago History Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the California Museum of Photography, and the Houston Museum of African American Culture.

Michael L. Abramson