Customer Reviews

Eugène Atget's Trees: Newly Discovered Photographs from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France

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This extraordinary book should be of interest to Atget fans for several reasons that are not apparent from the description offered. The plates are hand tipped, and the reproductions are splendid, capturing the atmosphere of Atget's prints. The book is listed as hardcover, but the binding is a clamshell construction, so that the pages of the book are protected while the book is stored. Also, what is not obvious is that the book has been produced in a very limited edition of only 1000 numbered copies, and most likely will become unavailable soon.

Of the images in the book, I think that any Atget fan knows that trees were a favorite subject of his, and some of the images feel very familiar. But what this sequence of photographs reveals through multiple images of the same trees is something of the working methods of the photographer. At least some of the images are of places and trees that most photographers would pass by as not likely to produce an image of lasting interest, but Atget manages to produce photographs full of grace and mystery, and to transform the ordinary into something lush and satisfying. How he managed to accomplish this is, of course, unknowable, but it is precisely this magic that draws us to his work.