174 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Porte d’Asnières, Cité Trébert, ragpickers (17th arrondissement), 1913 A cobblestone alley lined with stacked barrels, crates, and carts loaded with bundles; two ragpickers sitting—one on the threshold to the right, a hen on the cobblestones—with houses in the background. Silver print 18.2 x 23.8 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotations: “Porte d’Asnières, Cité Cribert [for Trébert] 1913 (17th)” in ink; in pencil: “Passage Trébert, ragpickers—right-of-way area or Cité Va[lmy?] / PH 8510—Musée Carnavalet / Print made from a glass negative in the BNF / Print number cut off in the lower left corner / microfilm: G045826”; “Photo 29 [?]” in ink 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 “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.