Famous Photographers - Part 18 (Chapter 1) - Eugene Atget
Famous Photographers - Part 18 (Chapter 1) - Eugene Atget
Who was Eugene Atget? When I read the stories of many of the photographers I profiled, they paid homage to, or just seemed in awe of him. For one thing, he preceded all of them, and for another, he has been dubbed the first "Street Photographer". Notwithstanding that even though later in his career he was offered a smaller camera, easier to use out in the streets, he steadfastly kept lugging around his old 40 lb 8" X 10" wood encased glass slide camera.
From Wikipedia:
Eugène Atget (French:12 February 1857 – 4 August 1927) was a French flâneur [translation: stroller] and a pioneer of documentary photography, noted for his determination to document all of the architecture and street scenes of Paris before their disappearance to modernization. Most of his photographs were first published by Berenice Abbott [the previous focus of my Famous Photogapher series] after his death. An inspiration for the surrealists and other artists, his genius was only recognized by a handful of young artists in the last two years of his life, and he did not live to see the wide acclaim his work would eventually receive.
After WWII destroyed many parts of Paris, his photos were considered irreplaceable as the only existing archive of views of old Paris, and many are kept in a Paris museum.
From “Bystander: A History of Street Photography” by acclaimed photo historian Colin Westerbeck and by the great Joel Meyerowitz (another previously included in my Famous Photographer series)
“While stop action images of people are bound to figure prominently in many collections of street photographs, [some] also contain many pictures in which there are no people at all. The most salient examples are to be found in the works of Eugene Atget. Yet even he was, through implication and inference, trying to show us life on the streets. Suggesting presence in the midst of absence, he was attempting to reveal the character of the street [inherent] in the setting itself. Like every other practitioner of this genre, he wandered the streets with his camera, looking for what would be called photo opportunities. More important, he was also like every other street photographer in his readiness to respond to errant details, chance juxtapositions, odd non sequiturs, peculiarities of scale, the quirkiness of life on the streets.”
From Eric Kim "6 Lessons Eugene Atget Has Taught Me About Street Photography"
While Atget never talked about his own images, he shared his life’s vision for his work in this excerpt:
“For more than twenty years by my own work and personal initiative, I have gathered from all the old streets of Vieux Paris photographic plates, 18 x 24 [cm, equal to 8" X 10"] format, artistic documents of the beautiful civil architecture of the 16th to the 19th century: the old hôtels, historic or curious houses, beautiful facades, beautiful doors, beautiful woodwork, door knockers, old fountains… This vast artistic and documentary collection is today complete. I can truthfully say that I possess all of Vieux Paris.” – Eugene Atget
There are so many fantastic historical photos of sights, many of which no longer exist, that I just have to continue his works in more chapters. As I have done in the previous articles, my personal comments on the photos commence with (Buzz note: ....). Here is the first group of 60 of Eugene Atget's photos:
1. Au Tambour, 1908
2. Organ Grinder Street Musicians, 1898–99
3. Rags collector, 1899
4. Avenue des Gobelins (1927)
5. People watching the solar eclipse of 1912
6. Prostitute waiting in front of her door, 1921
7. Saint-Cloud, 1924
8. Hameau de la reine, Versailles, 1926
9. La Rochelle, beffroi，1896?
10. Fête des Invalides，1898
11. Cluny, 1898
12. Cluny, 1898 (2)
13. Pommier, 1898 or before?
14. Picquigny (ruines), 1898 or earlier
15. Untitled [Hut Among Willows], Probably before 1898 (Buzz note: Somehow those trees don't look like Willows to me, as Willows have long drooping branches.)
16. Fête des Invalides,1898 (2)
17. Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève, 1898
18. Ancienne école de Médecine. Rue de la Bûcherie, 1898
19. Ferme, Abbeville, Probably before 1898
20. Musée Carnavalet, 23 rue de Sévigné, 1898
21. Musée Carnavalet, 1898 (2)
22. Musée Carnavalet, 1898 (3)
23. Luxembourg, 1898
24. Luxembourg, 1898 (2)
25. Le Fiacre, avant les pneus, 1898
26. Cour de Rouen, 1898
27. Place des Vosges, 1898
28. Cour de Rouen, 1898 (2)
29. Ancien couvent de l'Assomption, Rue Cambon (démoli), 1898
30. Rue Mouffetard, 1898
31. Hôtel Lamoignon. 24 rue Pavée, 1898
32. Ancien Amphitheatre Saint-Côme rue de l'Ecole de Médecine, 1898
33. Untitled, 1898
34. Fête des Invalides, 1898-99 (3)
35. Pommier, Before 1900 (2)
36. Aloes (Nice), Before 1900 (Buzz note: I never knew that the Aloe plant grew that big - I've only seen them as small house plants.)
37. Artichauts, Before 1900 (Buzz note: Since this was well before photoshopping and the blanking out of background in order for the subject to be seen clearly without distraction from behind it, someone or something holds up a white sheet behind the plant.)
38. Pommier, Before 1900 (3)
39. Untitled (fruit tree), Before 1900
40. Vigne, Before 1900
41. Cyprès, Before 1900
42. Untitled, 1899
43. Untitled, 1898-99
44. Untitled, Before 1900
45. Untitled, Before 1900
46. Moulin (Somme), Before 1900 (1)
47. Charrue, Before 1900
48. La Rochelle, 1896?
49. Chemin á Abbeville, Before 1900
50. Étaples, Before 1900
51. Luxembourg, 1899 (3)
52. Rue de Venise, 1898-99
53. Faucheur (Somme), Before 1900
54. Moulin (Somme), Before 1900 (2)
55. Abbeville, Saint-Vulfran, 1899 or before
56. Abbeville, Before 1900
57. Abbeville (retable), Before 1900
58. Abbeville (Somme), Before 1900
59. Abbeville, Saint-Vulfran, 1899 or before
60. Abbeville, Saint-Vulfran, Panneau, 1899 or before
To be continued. There are so many fantastic Atget photos that I will be doing 2 or perhaps 3 more articles of his photos.
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The previous Famous Photographer that I featured, Berenice Abbott, was in Paris with artist and photographer Man Ray at the time that a very aged Eugene Atget lived nearby on the same street. She was influenced by his style and subject choice. He photographed Paris at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century to preserve it and Berenice Abbott photographed New York City in the 1930s to preserve it as well.
She photographed Atget shortly before he passed away.
#36, wow! I didn't know they grew that big either! I have always enjoyed black and white photos and I am sure these were taken well before color film
. Very nice collection!
Many of the titles are in French, but most just describe the location of the photo. Although a Canadian I had to study French in high school (in Canada English and French are both equally considered the 2 official languages) most of you will most likely have to use google or bing translate to understand the meaning.
Images in Sepia Tone evoke a sense of "the past," and often, related melancholia of things and people gone and/or changed in such a way as to create a longing.
Good analysis.
Thank you! I was trying to put that same thought into words as well. As Buzz said, great analysis
It would be difficult to pick out the top 5 out of this grouping...All are very interesting...
By researching and posting these Famous Photographer articles I am not only learning photographic technique, but also history, sometimes geography and even in some cases sociology. So far it has been extremely rewarding for me, and could also be for those who take the time to view them, if they take off a little time from arguing over politics and religion.
Although I'm ready to post Chapter 2 of Eugene Atget's photos, there is no purpose at this point when all focus at this point is on the "Memo", and then of course the Superbowl.