voyages. As a young man he turned to acting, and
around 1886 met the actress Valentine Delafosse-
Compagnon who became his lifelong companion,
oramie, and the two toured minor provincial thea-
ters. Atget’s physique and provincial accent kept
him from landing anything but undesirable ‘‘third’’
roles, and in 1888 he was dismissed from the thea-
ter. Around 1889 he and Valentine moved to Paris
where he unsuccessfully tried his hand at painting
(some of his paintings were uncovered in his studio
upon his death). Sometime during the late 1890s he
devoted himself to becoming a self-taught photo-
grapher, a technology only about 40 years old.
Little is known about how he learned photographic
techniques, but Abbott has described his early
efforts as taking place in remote gardens where he
was able to learn and experiment undisturbed.
Atget’s early photographs were taken with the
idea of creating study material for artists, and for
some years he took pictures of natural images such
as landscapes and plants. It is thought that Atget
began working as a photographer in 1898, and it is
clear that he was soon successful enough to mea-
gerly support himself. The following announce-
ment appeared in the February 1892 issue ofLa
Revue des Beaux-Arts:
We recommend to our readers, M. Atget photographer,
5 Rue de la Pitie ́(Paris), who has for artists: landscapes,
animals, flowers, monuments, documents, foregrounds
for artists, reproductions for paintings, will travel. Col-
lections not commercially available.The hand lettered sign outside his fifth-floor
apartment-studio at 31 rue Campagne Premie`re
read, ‘‘Documents pour Artistes,’’ and it is said
that numerous Parisian painters, including Georges
Braque, Henri Matisse, and Man Ray were among
his customers.
Atget’s friend Andre ́ Calmettes conveyed the
photographer’s early aspirations, ‘‘He already had
the ambition of creating a collection of everything
artistic and picturesque in and about Paris.’’ Per-
haps as early as 1898 Atget decided upon the sub-
ject for which he is best known, a systematic record
of the streets, storefronts, people, architectural
details, and landmarks of old Paris. These works
were not commissioned, offering Atget an artistic
freedom that was more agreeable to him than his
earlier natural studies. He eventually disclosed to
Abbott that he did not like taking commissions
because ‘‘people [do] not know how to see.’’ He
allowed himself to seek and capture the endless
surprises of Paris, the winding streets, and the old
houses, the statues and reflections. His idea was
nominally successful and in 1901 he began a series
that was overseen by the Bibliothe`que historique
de la Ville de Paris. The series, titledLa Topogra-
phie du Vieux Paris, was in many ways a continua-
tion of his own documentation of Paris. The
concept behind this series, which made it different
from Atget’s earlier work, was to visually record
architectural and historical sites that were about to
be demolished, capturing the spirit of a Paris about
to disappear.
The photographs of Old Paris by Atget are
invaluable as a record of a quickly changing city,
which underwent redevelopment at least twice dur-
ing his lifetime. Napoleon III came to power in
1853, appointing Baron Georges Hausmann as
chief administrator to oversee the task of modern-
izing the city of Paris with the purpose of showcas-
ing it as the center of western culture and
modernity. In the process of building parks, widen-
ing avenues, and raising new buildings and cathe-
drals that became known as ‘‘Hausmannizaton’’
many old landmarks were demolished, such as the
street and buildings that were the subject ofCour,
rue Beethovan, 9(1901). Victorien Sardou tipped
off Atget as to which Parisian buildings and land-
marks were destined for demolition, and Atget
managed to visually record many of these sites
just before their destruction. The process of mod-
ernization again occurred in Paris during the per-
iod following World War I when Parisians were
concerned with rebuilding their devastated city.
Atget himself did little to no photography during
the war, but picked his camera back up after the
war’s conclusion and expanded his subject matter
to include the countryside around Paris.
One intriguing aspect of Atget’s photos is the
ability of the viewer to see historic Paris through
the eyes of an artist who insisted on the documen-
tary character of his work. It is this view of his
own work that might lead one to suggest that
Atget fully realized the historical context in which
his images existed and their potential value to fu-
ture generations.
In 1926, Atget met the young American photo-
grapher Berenice Abbott. Abbott’s interest in
Atget’s photography and life has proven to be
indispensable. Upon Atget’s death in 1927, Abbott
purchased a number of his prints, negatives, slides,
and papers from Andre ́Calmettes, and this collec-
tion was purchased in 1968 by the Museum of
Modern Art, New York. Abbott photographed
Atget only days before his death, and completed
biographical writings on his life that have proven
to be indispensable to scholars.
Atget captured the contradictions of Paris; the
simple beauty of the urban landscape and theATGET, EUGE`NE