132 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Small Market, Corner of Rue Mouffetard (5th arrondissement) A four-season cart with large wheels, loaded with tarps and equipped with a scale, surrounded by baskets and chairs, and stall frames; in the background, the Church of Saint-Médard, wall posters, and the street view. Silver print 23.8 x 18.2 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotations: “Small market at the corner of Rue Mouffetard” in ink; in pencil: “Photo 7” (underlined), horizontal arrow, vertical line, “2” and “1” at the bottom 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 “reference material 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.