138 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Art Nouveau shop, Rue Saint-Augustin (2nd arrondissement), 1910–1912 Art Nouveau storefront featuring stucco plant motifs, whip-shaped frames, and a female figure in relief; display windows labeled “Decorative Patinas” and “Imitation Ceramics”; above, the sign for a savings bank: “…d’Épargne—founded in 1883”; a woman in a white apron poses on the nearby threshold. Silver print 18.2 x 23.8 cm Inscription on the reverse: Ink annotation, written upside down: “Art Nouveau shop 45 [?] rue St Augustin - 1910–1912 - BNF”; “1” 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. 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 Historic Monuments department, which saw them as a record 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.