102 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Empire-style shop, Lemaire Pharmacy, 14 rue de Gramont (2nd arrondissement) Empire-style pharmacy storefront beneath a large arch adorned with winged figures in relief and a radiating design; pediment reading “First-Class Pharmacist”; display windows featuring “Vin Désiles - Regenerating Tonic” and “14 - Lemaire - First-Class Pharmacist,” apothecary jars, streetlamp on the right. Silver print 18.2 x 23.8 cm Inscription on the reverse: Ink annotation, written upside down: “Empire-style shop, 14 rue de Grammont” Provenance: former collection of Jean-Marie Drot Born in Libourne in 1857, Eugène Atget worked as a sailor and then an actor before devoting himself to photography around 1890. Based 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 Monuments Historiques, 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.