Eugène Atget

Louvre, Salle Egyptienne

Circa 1900

Eugène Atget (1857–1927) took up photography in the late 1880s, turning his camera on Paris in 1898. The French photographer captured Parisian streetscapes, shop fronts, and architectural details in a straight, documentary style, in contrast to the Pictorialist trend that was popular at the time.

Atget made beautiful and sensitive documents and by the early 1920s, up until his death, his works became increasingly expressive and metaphorical and were championed by the Surrealists for their poetic and haunting mood.

Thanks to the support of American photographer Berenice Abbott (1898–1991), Atget became recognized as one of the great early modern photographers, documenting Paris painstakingly on meanderings throughout the City of Light into the 20th century.

Abbott is famous for her black-and-white photographs of New York City. She also created a large body of portraits that she made in Paris. Abbott found inspiration in Atget's Parisian streetscapes, an influence that would carry over into her work and the series “Changing New York” (1935-38). A major body of Abbott’s work was made during the Works Progress Administration/Federal Art Project.

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(Biography provided by 99Prints NYC)