EUGENE ATGET Versailles Coin du Parc MOMA

EUGENE ATGET Versailles Coin du Parc MOMA
EUGENE ATGET Versailles (coin du parc), Ca. 1904, 6.8x9" [Albumen] print ASG# EA/1051

Atget's park scenes are some of his most celebrated views showing harmonious compositions breaking up space much as Lee Friedlander did later in the 20th Century.

Provenance: Museum of Modern Art

Markings: [In negative, reversed, BL] 6437
[Print verso, sideways, in graphite, left edge]Versailles 6437 DUPLI Matted
[Print verso, sideways, stamped, right edge]E. ATGET
[blurry, illegible][Print verso, sideways, in graphite, TR] 17 hr
[Print verso, sideways, in graphite, TR] MOMA
DUPE SWM2002

Eugene Atget (1857-1927) never called himself a photographer; instead he preferred "author-producer." A private, almost 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 Atget carried a large-format view camera, an outdated, cumbersome outfit, through the streets and gardens of Paris, usually photographing around dawn; many of these areas--storefronts and public spaces in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.

Though Atget was not well known during his lifetime, his visual record of a vanishing world has become an inspiration for twentieth-century photographers. American expatriate photographers Man Ray and Berenice Abbott rescued his work from obscurity just before his death. Abbott preserved his prints and negatives, and was the first person to publish and exhibit Atget's work outside of France. Credit J. Paul Getty Museum
Condition: Excellent. Minor wear