ATGET, (JEAN-)EUGNE(-AUGUSTE)

born Feb. 12, 1857, Libourne, near Bordeaux, Fr. died Aug. 4, 1927, Paris French photographer whose pictures of Paris and its people made him one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. Little is known of his early life. He was orphaned very young and lived with an uncle until he was old enough to go to sea as a cabin boy. After several voyages, he abandoned the sea for the stage. He soon fell in love with an actress much older than himself, and together they toured the provincial towns of France with an itinerant theatre company. Atget's ungainly appearance, however, relegated him to minor parts and low wages. By the time he was about 40 years old, neither he nor his companion was any longer able to earn a living by acting, and Atget was forced to begin a new career. For a short time, he tried to paint, and, about 1898, he decided to become a photographer. The rest of Atget's life was spent recording everything he could that he considered picturesque or artistic in and around Paris. He made several series of photographs of iron grillwork, fountains, statues, and trees. He photographed shop fronts (Basket and Broom Shop, Paris; 1910), store windows (Uniforms, Les Halles, Paris; c. 1910), and poor tradespeople (Lampshade Peddler; c. 1910). Atget's photographs were seldom simple or pedestrian statements. Caf La Rotonde,' Boulevard Montparnasse, Paris (c. 1920) has a lyrical, human quality, even though it shows no people, and The Giant, Fte du Trne, Paris (c. 1910) reveals Atget's eye for strange, unsettling images. His main clients were museums and historical societies that bought his photographs of historic buildings and monuments. During and after World War I, Atget was destitute. In 1921, however, he was given one of the few commissions he ever received, an assignment to document the brothels of Paris. For this he produced masterful photographic prints, such as Brothel, Versailles (c. 1921). In 1926 Man Ray (18901976), a U.S. artist and photographer living in Paris, saw such photographs as Shop Window: Tailor Dummies (c. 1910) and Coiffeur, Avenue de l'Observatoire, Paris (c. 1920). He was astonished by Atget's use of reflections on shop windows to achieve bizarre mixtures of images, and he published four of Atget's photographs in La Rvolution Surraliste. This publication was the only recognition Atget's work received during his lifetime. During the last few years of his life, Atget produced little. After the turn of the century, he ate nothing but bread, sugar, and milk, being convinced that all other foods were poisonous. This spartan diet and years of hard work left him physically broken. After the death of his lifelong companion in 1926, he was alone and virtually helpless. Berenice Abbott, a U.S. photographer studying with Man Ray, and the New York art dealer Julien Levy bought his remaining collection upon his death. It is now at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.