166 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Porte d’Asnières, Cité Valmy, ragpickers (17th arrondissement), 1913 Cobbled alley in Cité Valmy: large ragpickers’ carts loaded with sacks, walls and wooden shacks, a woman in the background, a trickle of water in the gutter; negative number in the lower left corner of the image; National Library stamp visible in the image. Silver print 18.2 x 23.8 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotations: “Porte d’Asnières, Cité Valmy, 1913. Ragpickers. ” in ink; in pencil: “from a glass negative / negative number included in the print at the bottom left / BNF Prints Oa 173c microfiche collection G045826 / Print made in 1959–1960 for *Les Heures chaudes de Montparnasse*” 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 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.