Iglobalphotographer magazine edition 1

Eugène Atget
Eugène Atget ( 12 February 1857 – 4 August 1927) was a
French flâneur and a pioneer of documentary
photography, noted for his determination to document all
of the architecture and street scenes of Paris before their
disappearance to modernization. Most of his photographs
were first published by Berenice Abbott after his death. An
inspiration for the surrealists and other artists, his genius
was only recognized by a handful of young artists in the
last two years of his life, and he did not live to see the wide
acclaim his work would eventually receive.
Atget created a tremendous photographic record of the
look and feel of nineteenth-century Paris just as it was
being dramatically transformed by modernization, and its
buildings were being systematically demolished.
Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget was born 12 February 1857 in Libourne. His father, carriage builder Jean-Eugène
Atget, died in 1862, and his mother, Clara-Adeline Atget née Hourlier died shortly after. He was brought up by his
maternal grandparents in Bordeaux and after finishing secondary education joined the merchant navy.
Atget moved to Paris in 1878. He failed the entrance exam for acting class but was admitted when he had a second
try. Because he was drafted for military service he could attend class only part-time, and he was expelled from
drama school.
Still living in Paris, he became an actor with a travelling group, performing in the Paris suburbs and the provinces.
He met actress Valentine Delafosse Compagnon, who became his companion until her death. He gave up acting
because of an infection of his vocal cords in 1887, moved to the provinces and took up painting without success. His
first photographs, of Amiens and Beauvais, date from 1888.
In 1890, Atget moved back to Paris and became a professional photographer, supplying documents for artists:
studies for painters, architects, and stage designers.
Starting in 1898, institutions such as the Musée Carnavalet and the Bibliothèque historique de la ville de
Paris bought his photographs. The latter commissioned him ca. 1906 to systematically photograph old buildings in
Paris. In 1899 he moved to Montparnasse.
During World War I Eugène Atget temporarily stored his archives in his basement for safekeeping and almost
completely gave up photography. Valentine's son Léon was killed at the front.
In 1920–21, he sold thousands of his negatives to institutions. Financially independent, he took up photographing
the parks of Versailles, Saint-Cloud and Sceaux and produced a series of photographs of prostitutes.
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