Eugene Atget

by Gerry Badger, Eugène Atget

Eugene Atget (1857-1927) took over 10,000 photographs of the trades, architecture and street scenes of Paris and its surroundings. Atget modestly called his images 'documents for artists'. Yet since his death, his reputation has grown into that of one of the world's pre-eminent photographers. Other artists in this series Mathew Brady, Wynn Bullock, Julia Margaret Cameron, Joan Fontcuberta, David Goldblatt, Nan Goldin, Graciela Iturbide, Andre Kertesz, Dorothea Lange, Mary Ellen Mark, Joel Meyerowitz, Boris Mikhailov, Lisette Model, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Eadweard Muybridge, Eugene Richards, W. Eugene Smith, Shomei Tomatsu, Joel-Peter Witkin

Genres: Photography, Art

128 pages, Paperback

Published January 5, 2001

Reviews

[kociefutro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atget will always have a very special place in my photographic heart. First saw his work in college while studying photography, he quickly became my gateway to finding my own style and has been a huge inspiration. This is a lovely, small book that captures his work nicely. A great start to get to know him as a photographer and a person.

[Ben Rowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Engaging text and interesting images - were I a bigger fan of Atget this would be something I would like more. This is where the 55 series works great 55 pictures of decent size with relevant and interesting text backing it up. Some of the others in the series have featured artists I am less interested in and I can see me dipping into this a few times in the future.

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love small book collections of photography and this one is a little gem. The first few pages are a nice, brief biography of the photographer and most of the photos are kept to one page, which makes them much easier to see. On the opposite side of each photos is a description of where, when and what as well as a brief critique of each image and inspiration.

The images themselves are haunting and evocative, giving a strong sense of the time and place and Atget's sense of light and shadows is amazing. They have both a timeless feeling and a sense of a time and place that is long gone, which I find fascinating and keeps me going back and looking at each photo over and over again.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

A petite but well crafted entre into the world of Eugene Atget, who revolutionized how we see buidings and photographs of buildings. Best place to start. The reproductions are small but render the detail crisply, with velvety blacks. Especially good is you get the book for $1.99 like I did.