172 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Porte d’Asnières, Cité Trébert, ragpickers (17th arrondissement), 1913 Two ragpickers wearing caps sorting through papers in a courtyard; piles of papers and rags; large wicker baskets; hanging canvases and hides; a heavy wooden door on the right. Silver print 23.8 x 18.2 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotation in ink: “Porte d’Asnières (Cité Cribert [for Trébert] 1913) 17th (ragpickers).” Provenance: former collection of Jean-Marie Drot Born in Libourne in 1857, Eugène Atget was a sailor and then an actor before devoting himself to photography around 1890. Settling on Rue Campagne-Première, he produced “documents for artists” and photographed old Paris for nearly forty years: 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 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.