Eugène Atget
The story of Eugène Atget, is a remarkable one – a true photographic pioneer and it is only today that the impact of his 30 year work can truly be seen for what it was. He captured the essence of Paris of a bygone era. Eugène Atget was born in Bordeaux in 1857, but soon became an orphan and was raised by an Uncle, until he was of an age that he could be sent to sea as a cabin boy. His early years formed the basis of his quest to capture life as it was. Strangely enough hardly anything is known of his personal life, or his day to day existence as a photographer preferring to keep his life private. A memoir called Eugene Atget Life, was publish.
Eugène Atget did not remain at sea, but instead as a young man turned to acting, in the French provincial towns, and then went on to perform in Paris. Atget was not a gamely young man, and would thus be relegated to playing villains. As he got older, he turned his sights to art, and fraternized with the painters and intellectuals of his day, even putting his hand to painting, a few were found in his studio at death.
Eugène Atget turned his attention to photography, after he purchased photographic equipment and glass plates for film development - and, thus started his career, which spanned some 30 years. His subject was old Paris and it suburbs – this included photographing houses, chateaux, streets, the great monuments of Paris – capturing history before it disappeared and the day to day lives of the people who lived there. He was a man that had vision, with a sharp mind, focused on portraying that which a beheld through his lens in its truth for what it was – enlightening and sensitively drawing the beholder in.
Oddly, he was to find that photography was no more rewarding in the financial sense – but at least it gave him a sense of satisfaction. Eugène Atget would haul with great difficulty his equipment around Paris and Versailles, to photograph that which caught his attention. It was not until a print was purchased by Luc-Oliver Merson, for the princely sum of 15 francs that Atget realized some reward for his efforts. This encouraged him to continue until the famous playwright Victorien Sardou took an interest in his work in 1888, and suggested that he turn his attention to photographing the slowing disappearing Paris of the time. He achieved recognition and was supported financially by some of Paris’ prominent citizenry. Painters of the day would purchase his photographs as studies to produce their artistic works.
His outdated large format view camera was the instrument he used to capture the streets, Paris gardens in the early mornings when the light was at its best. Some of his pictures included the storefronts and public places of this 19th century city just before it was demolished to make way for urban growth. WW1 soon put paid, to what he had achieved almost destroying him in the process.
Eugène Atget died in 1927, and if it were not for modern photographers Berenice Abbott and the great Man Ray his work would have been lost for all time.
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