141 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Corner of the Carmes Market, Place Maubert (5th arrondissement) A scrap dealer’s and secondhand goods vendor’s stall under the arcades of the covered market: blankets and old clothes piled high, chains, pipes, utensils, and tools on shelves, stacks of plates and pots on the cobblestones. Silver print 23.8 x 18.2 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotation in ink: “Corner of the Marché des Carmes, Place Maubert.” 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 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.