128 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Fruit Stand, Rue Mouffetard (5th Arrondissement) A fruit and vegetable stand spilling onto the sidewalk: crates lined with paper, apples, beans, and grapes; price signs reading “15 per kilo,” “4.40 [?] per ½ kilo,” “30,” “45”; sign reading “M.son Ch…” and a neighboring pastry shop. Silver print 23.8 x 18.2 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotations in ink: “Fruit shop on Rue Mouffetard. "; in pencil: framing sketch (three rectangles numbered "1)", "2)", "3)", note "(1 time) ” [?]), “4) 2L1 [?]” repeated in the upper left and right corners, “6” underlined in the lower right corner, vertical lines Provenance: former collection of Jean-Marie Drot Bibliography: *Atget Paris*, introduction by Laure Beaumont-Maillet, Paris, Hazan, 1992, reproduced on p. 336. 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.