Atget. Eugene Atget. Aperture History of Photography Series Number 14.

Aperture, 1980. Text by Ben Lifson. Illustrated boards, not issued with dust jacket. Fine, like new.

Note: Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget was born on February 12, 1857, in Libourne, France. An orphan at age seven, he was raised by his maternal grandparents in Bordeaux and as a young man joined the merchant navy, after which he became an actor.  When an infection damaged his vocal chords in 1887, he became a professional photographer in Paris, documenting the exterior and interior of old buildings, most of which are now long gone, using a large camera with gelatin glass plate negatives that he continued to use after most other photographers switched to film.  He also made occupational portraits and views of streets, storefronts, and parks.  The sign on his door read, “Documents pour artistes” (documents for artists).  During his career, Atget sold thousands of photographs to Parisian institutions and individuals.  In 1925, Berenice Abbott (1898-1901) met Atget and after his death in 1927 acquired a portion of his archives.  She printed some of his negatives and actively promoted his work for decades; her project documenting New York in the 1930s was inspired by him.  In 1968, Abbott sold her Atget collection to the Museum of Modern Art, which obtained 1,415 glass negatives and nearly 8,000 vintage prints from more than 4,000 different negatives.