In Focus: Eugene Atget : Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum [Paperback]

Gordon Baldwin (Author), Eugene Atget (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 2000 | Series: In Focus

Eug�ne Atget (1857-1927) spent nearly thirty years photographing details of often-inconspicuous buildings, side streets, cul-de-sacs, and public sculptures in his beloved Paris. Yet before his death, he was practically unknown outside of that city. His genius was first recognized about 1924 by two young Americans living and working in Paris, Man Ray and his studio assistant, Berenice Abbott, who recognized the elements of contradiction, ambivalence, and ambiguity in Atget's images of Parisian architecture, streets, and parks.

Presented in this volume are more than fifty of the Getty Museum's two hundred ninety-five pictures by Atget, with commentary on each image by Gordon Baldwin, associate curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum. In Focus: Eug�ne Atget also contains a chronological overview of his life and an edited transcript of a colloquium on his career, with participants Baldwin; David Featherstone, independent editor and curator; photographer Robbert Flick, professor of art at the University of Southern California; independent scholar David Harris; Weston Naef, curator of photographs, Getty Museum; Fran�oise Reynaud, curator of photographs at the Mus�e Carnavalet, Paris; and Michael S. Roth, associate director of the Getty Research Institute. This volume of the In Focus series is published to coincide with an exhibit of Atget's images from June 20 through October 18, 2000, at the Getty Museum.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Eug ne Atget was a commercial photographer who spent 30 years producing more than 8000 pictures of Paris and its surrounding countryside before his death in 1927, when American photographer Berenice Abbott purchased his archives. Though he was unknown during his lifetime, his place in photography continues to grow; at times, he seems to be the Gallic brother of Walker Evans. Was Atget's aim to produce a kind of travel guide to a part of France he revered or to capture the elegance of places, courtyards, and gardens for wealthy clients? We will never know, but both of these books sum up the mystery of his intent and the serenity of his camera eye by describing his work as "enigmatic." Szarkowski, who may be our best navigator through images of lightDhe was director of the department of photography at MoMA from 1962 to 1991Dcarefully gathers 100 photographs, taking us through a sepia-toned era where Atget's silence abounds as he lovingly describes what the photographer captured. The Getty book, part of the museum's "In Focus" series, is less ambitious and might serve as a small but representative introduction to the special legacy of Atget. Useful descriptions accompanying each picture will help students, but the black-and-white reproduction and the two-column text make the images seem colder and the book less inviting than Szarkowski's sepia and margin-to-margin text. Where budgets allow, Szarkowski's approach to Atget is recommended, with the Getty version a second choice.DDavid Bryant, New Canaan Lib., CT
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

This new collection of Atget’s photographs shows his systematic, beautifully detailed work in all its splendor.” -- Picture Magazine, January 2001

“It delivers a great deal of information at a budget price.” -- New York Times, 12/3/00

“This is a book that creates nostalgia for the Paris that was.” -- Black & White Magazine, February 2001 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: J. Paul Getty Museum; 1 edition (August 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 089236601X
• ISBN-13: 978-0892366019
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #939,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 19TH CENTURY PARIS PASSIONATELY DOCUMENTED FOR POSTERITY, January 17, 2001

By 

"natalierinkenbach" (new york) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eugene Atget (Photobook) (Hardcover)

Eugene Atget (1857-1927) is the undisputed photo-documentarian of 19th century Paris. With studious attention to detail, Atget seemingly photographed every intimate corner of his much-loved city. Leaving the well-known monuments and boulevards to others, Atget instead concentrated on the atmospheric fabric of everyday Paris, photographing shops and window displays, cobbled streets, doorways, stairways, vehicles, churches, amusement parks, street-peddlers and prostitutes.

Unraveling the mystery of Eugène Atget's life and work is easier said than done. Now considered to be one of history's most important photographers, Atget was relatively unknown during his lifetime. Posthumously famous for his photographs, Atget in fact made only a humble living selling his prints to architects, artists, and institutions.

Atget wrote in 1920, "I may say that I have in my possession all of Old Paris." His systematic method of photographing Paris street by street is spellbinding, and the result is a detailed catalogue of 19th century Paris. The result of Eugène Atget's life's work is gathered here in a heartbreakingly beautiful book for lovers of Paris, architecture, and photography.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Atget's Simple Documents, August 11, 2000

By 

Tom Rand - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Focus: Eugene Atget : Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Paperback)

The J. Paul Getty Museum's latest photography book installment - focusing on the work of Eugene Atget, offers the best example of curators creating much ado about an artists work, through speculation and second-guessing. This merely justifies the curator's reason for employment, while boring the reader with a treasure trove of euphemisms and art-speak banter. That we learn more about each speaker's own Rorschach test interpretation of the photographs and less on the artist is not the point. The point is, why does the final third of the book contain this colloquium, when it could easily have been filled with more samplings from the Museum's 295 Atget holdings? Atget's images of Paris are brilliant for what they represent: a visual recording of what he considered worth preserving in pictures. His subject matter ranged from buildings and statues - to interiors, street merchants, and anything worthy of pursuing photographically in and around Paris. Atget's photographs gain their strength due to their simplicity; any further interpretation renders them less for their intent - which was purely documentation. Skip the verbiage contained in "Eugene Atget: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum", and just enjoy Atget's simple photographs of his beloved Paris.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superbly presented and invaluable contribution, March 1, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Focus: Eugene Atget : Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Paperback)

Eugene Atget (1857-1927) spent almost thirty years photographing details of often inconspicuous Parisian buildings, side streets, cul-de-sacs, and public sculptures. In Focus: Eugene Atget brings together more than 50 of the J. Paul Getty Museum's 295 photographs by Atget, with commentary on each image by associate curator of photographs at the Getty Museum, Gordon Baldwin. Atget's photograph and Baldwin's commentary are enhanced with a chronological overview of Atget's life and an edited transcript of a colloquium on his career. In Focus: Eugene Atget is a superbly presented and invaluable contribution to the history of photography.