177 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Porte d’Ivry, Interior of a Secondhand Clothing Store (13th arrondissement), 1912 In front of a shack made of planks: laundry hanging from a rope, a table laden with basins and boxes, baskets, poles leaning against the door, dolls and pictures hanging on the wall, a muddy floor littered with papers. Silver print 23.8 x 18.2 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotation in ink: “Porte d’Ivry, interior of a secondhand dealer’s shop, 1912 ( ” [unfinished] 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 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.