Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Atget's Merchandise

Eugène Atget
Shop-sign, rue Geoffroy St Hilaire, Paris
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Eugène Atget
Shop-sign, rue Montmartre, Paris
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

"Eugene Atget never called himself a photographer; instead he preferred "author-producer."  A private, reclusive man, Atget first tried his hand at painting and acting, then began to photograph vieux Paris (Old Paris) in 1898. He photographed in part to create "documents," as he called his photographs, of architecture and urban views, but he supported himself by selling these photographs to painters as studies. Atget carried a large-format view camera, an outdated, cumbersome outfit, through the streets and gardens of Paris, usually photographing around dawn; many of these areas  storefronts and public spaces in nineteenth-century Paris and Versailles  were demolished soon afterward to make way for rapid urbanization."

 curatorial notes, Getty Museum

The Victoria & Albert in London reports that between 1902 and 1905 Atget sold some 600 of his prints directly to the Museum, "as records of architecture, sculpture, and decorative metalwork." Not until twenty years later, according to the Museum, did Atget's work "acquire an artistic status" when it was "discovered" by sharp-eyed Surrealists shortly before the photographer's death in 1927.  "Today, Atget is admired less as a documentary recorder and more as a forerunner of modern approaches to photography.  His urban scenes  featuring snatched glimpses, tangential perspectives, odd reflections and bizarre details  convey a distinctly modern experience of the city.  In 1936, critic Walter Benjamin described how these images operated beyond their ostensible purpose, appearing unintentionally, but uncannily, like the 'scene of a crime.'"

Eugène Atget
Shop-sign, rue de l'Hotel de Ville, Paris
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Eugène Atget
Doorway, Church, Montmorency
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Eugène Atget
Church of St Gervaise, Paris
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Eugène Atget
Fountain de Medicis, Luxumbourg Gardens, Paris
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Eugène Atget
Versailles - Statues of Animals
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Eugène Atget
Versailles - The Palace
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Eugène Atget
Versailles - Marble Fountain
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Eugène Atget
Versailles - Statue of Huntress
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Eugène Atget
Versailles - File of Statues
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Eugène Atget
 Versailles - Statue of Putto and Dragon
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Eugène Atget
Versailles - Statue with Cornucopia
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Eugène Atget
Orangerie on the grounds of a château built at Meudon in 1695
ca. 1900
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London