106 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Furniture store, corner of Rue des Ciseaux (6th arrondissement) Street corner: “Dalbret—Carved Wood—Tapestries” antique and interior design shop; woodwork, carved panels, gilded frames, and armchairs displayed on the sidewalk; a cutlery shop nearby; street signs at the corner. Silver print 18.2 x 23.3 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotation in ink, written upside down: “Furniture shop at the corner of Rue des Ciseaux”; the number “3” circled and “3” in pencil Provenance: former collection of Jean-Marie Drot 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.