142 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Secondhand Dealer, 10 Avenue de Lowendal (7th arrondissement) A secondhand dealer’s display under an awning: coats and jackets hanging, a saddle and harness, framed paintings and engravings, a guitar, books, a pedestal table, and a cast-iron stove leaning against the wall; the National Library’s stamp is visible in the image. Silver print 23.8 x 18.2 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotation in ink: “10 Avenue Lowendal Secondhand Dealer.” 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 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.