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

by Gordon Baldwin, Eugène Atget

Eugène 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 Eugène 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; Françoise Reynaud, curator of photographs at the Musée 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.

Genres: Photography

144 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 2000

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Detailed discussion of several dozen photos individually, as well as a transcript of a discussion with several curators about his collective work. Excellent in all aspects.

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful little book. I thoroughly enjoyed the text and was pleased with notices being made to details of Atget’s photos that I hadn’t noticed or perhaps appreciated myself. I did not give it five stars though as the photos while nicely done are only about half size and required the use of a magnifier to make out some of the details being discussed.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this "In Focus Series" because it used the very accessible format of putting the photo on one page and an analysis on the facing page. I learned a lot about Atget, who was a great photographer of buildings in early 20th century Paris. He created these photos to sell to designers, painters, anyone who needed photos of buildings.