Eugène Atget profile picture

Eugène Atget

About Me

I was born in Lisbourne, France in 1856. After my parents died in 1861 I went to live with an uncle in Bourdeaux where I received my primary schooling. I worked as a sailor, actor, and painter before turning to photography at the age of 41. I was completely self-taught and made a meager living by selling photographs to architects, painters, stage designers and editors. I would photograph subjects that I thought would be the most useful for my clientele such as parks, streets, architectural details, vendors, farms and monuments. In all, I created about 10,000 photographs of Paris and its surroundings. I received only one commission in my lifetime and that was to document the brothels of Paris. In 1926 Man Ray published a few of my photographs in his periodical La Revolution Surrealist, but I received no credit. Although today I am thought of as one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, it was not until after my death in 1927 that my work became appreciated and this was due in large part to the efforts of Berenice Abbott who helped to promote and preserve my work. Today my work can be found in collections such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.

My Blog

Exhibitions

   Artist's Choice: Vik Muniz, RebusDecember 14, 2008 - February 23, 2009 (Special Exhibitions Gallery, third floor)Vik Muniz (Brazilian, b. 1961) is the ninth artist to participate in ...
Posted by on Sat, 23 Feb 2008 05:55:00 GMT

Profile

  Few facts are known of the early life of Eugene Atget, the photographer whose extraordinary documentation of Paris in the first quarter of the 20th century was for many years uncelebratcd. Bor...
Posted by on Sun, 24 Feb 2008 03:54:00 GMT

the Viewing Experience

  Photography, more than any other medium, falls prey to confusion over the nature of the viewing experience, over the relationship of subject matter to image. We forget all too easily that the ...
Posted by on Sun, 24 Feb 2008 03:45:00 GMT

Form

  If light and space are key elements in defining Atget's style, his use of form is equally important. A sense of form appears to have been one of his gifts from the very early years, but it grew...
Posted by on Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:47:00 GMT

Light

  In the early views of Paris streets, light is external and illuminates its subject with an even clarity; it is for the most part the light of midday when shadows are at a minimum. This is the ...
Posted by on Sun, 24 Feb 2008 03:49:00 GMT

Theory of Sacrifices

  Atget's technique, which depended upon the transparency of the glass negative and the clarity of the albumen print, emphasized sharply defined surface information and would seem, therefore, to...
Posted by on Sat, 23 Feb 2008 06:59:00 GMT

Artist for our Time

  Although Atget's work may be seen as a continuation of the concerns of the nineteenth-century photographer, he is, in fact, an artist for our time. The test each generation must apply to the a...
Posted by on Sat, 23 Feb 2008 06:51:00 GMT

Style

  The subject and style of Atget's work may be analyzed as part of a continuum begun by the Paris School in the 1850s. On one level, the concept of photography as a pictorial and archaeological m...
Posted by on Sat, 23 Feb 2008 06:35:00 GMT

Dispelling the Myth of Naivete

  That Atget rarely dated a print has led to one of the most frustrating obstacles in analyzing his work. Now that the research conducted by the Museum of Modern Art, New York has yielded the key...
Posted by on Sat, 23 Feb 2008 08:54:00 GMT