101 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Au Bébé Bon Marché, doll shop, 63 Rue de Sèvres (6th arrondissement), 1910 Storefront of a toy shop: sign reading “Au Bébé Bon Marché 63,” window display reading “Doll & Baby Repairs on the Spot,” a display of boxed dolls and tea sets on the sidewalk, a sign reading “Dolls of All Kinds—Trousseaus & Baby Layettes,” a “Closed” sign; reflections of the street in the display window. Silver print 23.8 x 17.2 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotation in ink: “Shop on Rue de Sèvres”; in pencil: “p516” Provenance: former collection of Jean-Marie Drot Bibliography: *Atget Paris*, introduction by Laure Beaumont-Maillet, Paris, Hazan, 1992, reproduced on p. 516. Born in Libourne in 1857, Eugène Atget worked as a sailor and then as an actor before devoting himself to photography around 1890. Settling on Rue Campagne-Première, he produced “documents for artists” and spent nearly forty years photographing old Paris: streets, courtyards, storefronts, signs, small trades, parks, and interiors. His thousands of photographs were acquired by the National Library, the Carnavalet Museum, and the Historic Monuments department, which saw them as an inventory of a city in the process of disappearing. Man Ray and the Surrealists, followed by Berenice Abbott—who saved a large portion of his collection—revealed the poetic dimension of his work. He died in Paris in 1927 and is considered one of the fathers of modern documentary photography.