168 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Porte d'Ivry, Interior of a Rag-and-Bone Man’s Shop (13th arrondissement), 1912 A narrow alley cluttered with a ragpicker’s dwelling: a handcart, scrap metal, baskets and cans, hanging clothes and cloths, and shacks made of planks covered with sheet metal. Silver print 23.8 x 18.2 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotation in ink: “Porte d’Ivry. Inside a ragpicker’s home, 1912 (13th arrondissement)” 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 Office, 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.