Getty Museum

Eugène Atget

Date

1927

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

Object ID

a20f21df-4acd-4bab-89dc-b7990a59086e

>There was a sudden shock of recognition--the shock of realism unadorned. The subjects were not sensational, but nevertheless shocking in their very familiarity. The realism in Eugène Atget's "documents for artists," his photographs of Paris, was so striking to Berenice Abbott that she immediately sought him out and began purchasing his images. At the time, Abbott was working in Paris as a darkroom assistant to the photographer Man Ray. She had only recently learned how to use a camera. Atget was not difficult to locate, living just up the street from Man Ray's studio. Shortly after meeting Atget in 1926, Abbot asked him to sit for a portrait. He was almost seventy years old then, frail and quite sad after the recent death of his wife. Atget died soon after this portrait was made, before Abbott could show him the work. Abbott played a crucial role in making Atget's work known. After returning to New York in 1929, she published a book on his work, which featured 176 images, and eventually sold her collection to the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

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