151 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) A Corner of the Patriarches Market (5th arrondissement) Covered market carts with large wheels, unhitched; handles resting on chains; stacked wicker crates; buildings with open shutters, residents at the windows; negative number inscribed in the image at the bottom right; National Library stamp visible in the image. Silver print 18.2 x 23.8 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotations in ink, written upside down: “A corner of the Marché des Patriarches”; in pencil: “Photo,” “28 [?]” Provenance: former Jean-Marie Drot collection 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.