181 - Eugène ATGET (1857–1927)

Eugène ATGET (1857–1927) Porte d'Ivry, a cart belonging to the Zoniers (13th arrondissement), 1912 A wooden cart with large wheels, a canvas-covered roof, laundry hanging from the door, a pitcher and a pot on the step, a fence, and laundry drying in the background. Silver print 18.2 x 23.8 cm Inscription on the reverse: Annotation in ink: “Porte d’Ivry (14th Arrond.) 1912.”; “1” underlined in the upper right corner 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 Monuments Historiques, 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.