164 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Cité Doré, Boulevard de la Gare, ragpickers (13th arrondissement), 1913 Facade of a low-rise house in the Cité Doré: shutters adorned with crosses, a roll-up door, a table laden with stoves and hot plates, chairs, buckets, and cans on the cobblestones; a woman at the window in the upper left. Silver print 23.8 x 18.2 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotations in ink: “Cité Doré Bd de la Gare 70 [?] 1913 (13th) ragpickers”; in pencil: “5,” vertical framing lines 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.