One of the pioneers of photography in the 19th century, he exhibited in his hometown of Liburn

He is an atypical figure and a pioneer in photography. In the 19th century, he immortalized Paris, its inhabitants, its small trade with great poetry. He was a young American who discovered his talent in the 1920s. Liburn in the Gironde, his birthplace, pays him great respect by presenting works from Old Paris.

What living testimony of Old Paris would there be without these photographs carefully timed by the man who would become the pioneer of modern photography?

Especially with such a humanistic view, we probably wouldn’t have it. Because Eugène Atget not only created an extraordinary inventory of 10,000 images. A person who grew up in Girona testifies to a certain love of Paris through a testimonial and impressive photos.

This little Paris made people, and those who live the capital. These small trades, such as the sheet seller or mattress comber on the docks at the turn of the century. He met them in the districts of Paris, in the center, on the periphery, up to the “zone” where few dared at that time. That area, at the foot of the fortifications, also wears photographic equipment there, and especially his elegant gaze.

There is poetry, melancholy, lyricism in the choice of perspective and lighting, it is moving.

Caroline Fillon – Director of the Liburn Museum of Fine Arts

Source: France 3 Aquitaine, Web post

“At that time, photographers also earned their living by taking portraits of bourgeois and aristocratic families on theater stages, or rather, in the studio. He approaches it from the opposite point of view or gives rather crude statements about these people who were expelled from their homeland. After big jobs in the capital, they no longer have the opportunity to find a place to live, or, on the contrary, those who want to reach the capital, like Eldorado during a little rural migration, and people who consider themselves more poor. Caroline Fillon, who has built a wealth of work around the photographer from Leyburn, adds to this beautiful tribute to him in his hometown, Carmel Church.

We present the report prepared at the exhibition “Eugène Atget, Poet Photographer” Presented at Carmel Church in Liburn until 19 February 2023

Born in 1857 and raised by his maternal grandparents in the Bastide district of Bordeaux until the age of 20, the Libourne boy would leave the Gironde to become an actor, or at least that was his dream. But no, it doesn’t.

He would eventually become a photographer from 1888. In 1897, he began to systematically immortalize old Paris, focusing on scenes of urban life. For thirty years he explored the capital. Loaded with his camera and glass plates, he often takes pictures in the morning.

And we can measure the change at the beginning of the 20th century just by looking at his photos. When this is over.

Eugène Atget, reticent throughout his life, rose to fame after his death.

At the end of his life, Man meets Ray’s assistant, a young American woman, Berenice Abbott, and paints two portraits of her. Eugène Atget died in Paris in 1927 without issue. He will probably never return to his native Gironde. Anyway, no trace.

Berenice Abbott authorized the rescue of Eugène Atget’s studio collection, recognition of his work through the publication of various works, and later the addition of the Abbott/Levy collection to the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1968.

France discovered it in the 80s and 90s thanks to publications and several exhibitions. The Carnavalet Museum in the Marais brings together a very fine collection. It is this Old Paris museum that has also lent the works presented in Libourne until February 19 for this exceptional and impressive walk.