Eugene Atget Appreciation

[DREW WILEY]

Regardless, even the US Northwest was treated like an ignored stepchild when it came to artist recognition.

 

[snusmumriken]

Did other countries ever have their Atget? Was there an Atget roaming the streets of eg Oslo, Shangai, Tokyo, Rome, El Cairo? If so has any of their work survived?

Francis Frith (1922-1898) makes an interesting comparison to Atget. Having spent a few years photographing the Middle East, he set out to document the whole of Britain, resulting in a huge postcard industry which continues today. Seen against Atget’s, Frith’s photos seem to me notably soul-less and boring, but YMMV.

PS (edit) this page draws an interesting comparison between Atget and another contemporary photographer of Paris, Charles Marville.

 

[Arthurwg]

It should be no surprise that the most famous French novel published in these years (between 1913 and 1927) was titled Remembrance of Things Past (A la recherche du temps perdu).

Exactly. And let's remember that the entire enterprise of photography creates a "memory" as soon as the exposure is made, that the picture is immediately a representation of the past. But it's really the harder to define "sensibility" of memory that's at work here, rather than a simple document.

 

[snusmumriken]

Sorry, I missed off this link in my last post:
https://www.artandantiquesmag.com/eugene-atget-photography-paris/

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I'm gonna go left field here and say that the photographer closest in spirit to Atget, i.e., who, around the same time as Atget, took the documentary nature and possibilities of the medium to its limits (for the time), albeit with a totally different subject matter, is August Sander.

Sander looks at people the same way Atget looks at doorways, staircases and iron ornements on a balcony.

 

[cliveh]

I'm gonna go left field here and say that the photographer closest in spirit to Atget, i.e., who, around the same time as Atget, took the documentary nature and possibilities of the medium to its limits (for the time), albeit with a totally different subject matter, is August Sander.

Sander looks at people the same way Atget looks at doorways, staircases and iron ornements on a balcony.

What about Edward Sheriff Curtis?

 

[DREW WILEY]

Curtis? No way. He was a traveling set designer who even carried costumes with him, and was infamous for dressing up Indians in generic, non-authentic apparel, just like John Wayne movies. There were exceptions; but let's just say, ethnologists don't take his work as a reliable reference. Documentary it was not. He was romanticizing late frontier Indian culture, being commissioned to do that very thing. And he had nothing in common with Atget's compositional strategies. Don't get me wrong - I love Curtis' work and bought the best book on it I could find. But we're talking apples versus oranges here.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Curtis? No way. He was a traveling set designer who even carried costumes with him, and was infamous for dressing up Indians in generic, non-authentic apparel, just like John Wayne movies. There were exceptions; but let's just say, ethnologists don't take his work as a reliable reference. Documentary it was not. He was romanticizing late frontier Indian culture, being commissioned to do that very thing. And he had nothing in common with Atget's compositional strategies. Don't get me wrong - I love Curtis' work and bought the best book on it I could find. But we're talking apples versus oranges here.

You mean the Lone Ranger and Tonto didn't represent the real west?

 

[Don_ih]

About as much as Mickey Rooney passes for a Japanese man.

 

[cliveh]

How about: -

frank meadow sutcliffe prints - Google Search

 

[snusmumriken]

How about: -

Frank Sutcliffe

I’d say Sutcliffe’s photos are consciously pictorialist social documentary - lovely stuff, one of my favourites, but quite a different phenomenon to Atget.

 

[snusmumriken]

Honestly, I think trying to find other photographers who were like Atget is going to result in the (re-) discovery that photographs reflect the different personalities of their photographers … which is Good, but disappointing for viewers seeking more of the same.

 

[koraks]

There must have been many Atgets throughout history. Most of them will be (and remain) obscure, most likely, especially in the international domain. For instance, there was a photographer active in the first half of the 20th century (most notably) in the region I come from; his name is Martien Coppens. His works are diverse, but a substantial part of it shares traits with Atget's - focusing on street scenes, common architecture, the lives & environment of regular folk and, seemingly, an interest/ambition to photographically preserve what soon would be lost. Indeed, there are many differences, emphasizing what @snusmumriken said about personalities. For instance, Coppens placed far more emphasis on people, as evidenced in his series of portraits, and his documentating of working life and leisure. Also, since Coppens was active roughly half a century after Atget, technique is different, which also reflects in the subject matter; it's quite possible Atget would have made different choices if he had had access to other equipment and materials. And, most notably, Coppens was active in a predominantly rural area, while Atget lived in a metropole.

Demolition of a church in Venlo; 1940s.

View of the village of Oirschot, 1943

View of farmhouses near Lierop, 1940s

 

[baachitraka]

View of the village of Oirschot, 1943

Though I don't follow this religion, it still pains me to see something goes down like this. :-(

 

[MarkS]

Of course, no one else has (or had) Atget's sensibility or subject matter. How could they?
But I'll point to the work of Wright Morris- at least in his choice of subject- his 'home place' in the throes of change.
He was a successful author as well as a fine photographer... which confused both the writers and the photographers, and earned the derogation of both, in his time. in the 1970s his work was re-assessed and found its proper place- and powerful, evocative work it is.
See "God's Country and My People" or "Photographs and Words" to begin.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

But I'll point to the work of Wright Morris- at least in his choice of subject- his 'home place' in the throes of change.
He was a successful author as well as a fine photographer... which confused both the writers and the photographers, and earned the derogation of both, in his time. in the 1970s his work was re-assessed and found its proper place- and powerful, evocative work it is.
See "God's Country and My People" or "Photographs and Words" to begin.

That's not a bad comparison. Morris is certainly one of the most underrated photographers of the 40s, and there is a link to Atget via Walker Evans. I have Photographs & Words, but I've yet to read one of his novels. There are a few brilliant essays about him — one by Frank Goehlke and the other by Peter C. Bunnell come to mind —, but he deserves to be better known by the photographic community at large.

 

[nikos79]

I'm gonna go left field here and say that the photographer closest in spirit to Atget, i.e., who, around the same time as Atget, took the documentary nature and possibilities of the medium to its limits (for the time), albeit with a totally different subject matter, is August Sander.

Sander looks at people the same way Atget looks at doorways, staircases and iron ornements on a balcony.

Good point they both share the same strictness

 

[cliveh]

Actually, Fox Talbot's images are close to Atget.

 

[nikos79]

I would add also that Atget is very close to all the following three:
August Sander
Bill Brandt
Josef Sudek

 

[nikos79]

Walker Evans was indeed very much influenced by Atget (also Berenice Abbott, there is also a side by side comparison of Atget and Walker Evans in Vimeo by Szarkowsky) but I find a deeper connection to the above three

 

[cliveh]

How about this?

 

[Arthurwg]

Of course, no one else has (or had) Atget's sensibility or subject matter. How could they?

The key word is "sensibility." That's what makes Atget a genius.

 

[Arthurwg]

View attachment 393345

How about this?

Oy!

 

[snusmumriken]

View attachment 393345

How about this?

Once again I am uncertain what Atget has achieved here that wasn't already made by the landscape architect?

What actually grabs my attention most is how poorly the sculpture has been installed on its pedestal. I guess it's quite likely that it was stolen from elsewhere!

 

[Don_ih]

How about this?

What do you think of it, Clive? I can't help but find it pretty mundane.