Eugène Atget – Old Paris: photography of life at its most still.

Posted by lisathatcher on October 13, 2012 in Articles

I was lucky enough to attend the Eugène Atget exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW a couple of weeks back. I have collected A few of the images here. These have simply been collected from a search. I have linked them all back to the exhibition web page. If anyone sees any image represented her in a way they deem inappropriate, please feel free to contact me on sendlisamessage(at)gmail.com and I will remove them immediately.

The opening blurb on the program for this exhibition states:

Between 1898 and 1927 Eugène Atget (1857-1927) explored the old quarters of Paris photographing street peddlers (small trades), shop fronts, the courtyard of 17th and 18th century townhouses, interiors, gardens and statues, as well as docks and bridges alone the River Seine. He relentlessly tracked down the vestiges of ‘Old Paris’.

Eugène Atget sold his photographs to artists, artisans and history enthusiasts, and to Pairs libraries, archives and museums. His images (he made about 30 000 prints in his lifetime) were used as models or documents. The 181 prints in this exhibition belong to the musee Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris (the museum of the history of Pairs – one of Eugène Atget’s primary clients), and are shown alongside albums he put together, a glass negative and other adjunct material.

Man Ray (1890-1976) the famous American artist who settled in Paris’ Montparnasse neighbourhood in 1921, purchased Atget’s photographs and introduced them to them Parisian avant-garde who were inspired by the mysterious and poetic visions of the city. A selection of Man Ray’s collection of Atget’s photographs – on loan from George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York – is included in this exhibition. Two Atget photographs from the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales also featured.

One of the most interesting aspects of this exhibition is that Ataget rarely photographed people. You will see them in the background or appearing as ghostly figures. This gives the streets of Paris a deserted feel that is intrinsic to his work.