139 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Book vendor, Place de la Bastille (4th arrondissement) Bookseller’s boxes open along a wall, overflowing with books and magazines tied with string; a young bookseller dressed in black sits reading on a stool; in the background, the July Column. Silver print 18.2 x 23.8 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotation in ink: “Book vendor, Place de la Bastille” Provenance: former collection of Jean-Marie Drot Bibliography: *Atget Paris*, introduction by Laure Beaumont-Maillet, Paris, Hazan, 1992, reproduced on p. 276. 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 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.