Dada Portrait of Berenice Abbott by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, though it doesn't look exactly like Abbott, does include clues as to what her relationship with Elsa was like.

Berenice Abbott was an American photographer and good friend of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. She was born in 1898 in Springfield, Ohio. After one year at Ohio State University studying journalism, Abbott moved to New York at the age of 19. As a person of limited monetary resources, Abbott had to work in order to survive. She was interested in sculpture at the time but found that she couldn't rely on it for money. So she decided that if she was going to be poor, she might as well do it in Paris. While there she got a job as Man Ray’s darkroom assistant. They had met in New York and he wanted an assistant who knew nothing about photography. Abbott knew nothing about photography but the catch was that she learned really quickly and when she tried taking her own photographs, she was really talented.

Elsa and Berenice had met in New York in 1919 and the two remained friends until the end of Elsa’s life. Abbott’s characterized Elsa as a person “like Jesus Christ and Shakespeare all rolled into one.” She recalled that Elsa “invented and introduced trousers with pictures and ornaments painted on them… [she] possessed a wonderful figure, statuesque and boyishly lean.” The two were close enough that Elsa’s dog took a particular liking to Abbott, so much so that the dog is included in this piece. Abbott is depicted with a mustache as an indication of Abbott’s androgyny. Abbott had cropped hair wore trousers, and was out as a lesbian at a time that was particularly awful to do so. She also didn’t care what people thought, much like her friend Elsa. Made of “gouache, metallic paint, and tinted lacquer with varnish, metal foil, celluloid, fiberglass, glass beads, metal objects, cut-and-pasted painted paper, gesso, and cloth on paperboard,” this piece is just as eclectic as either of these women. And though many artists and photographers, including Isamu Noguchi, tried to capture Abbott’s essence, Elsa may have nailed it the best.