A T G E T
JOH N SZ AR KOWSK I A T G E T he useum of Modern Art, New York
Produced by the Department of Publications The Museum of Modern Art, New York Edited by Harriet Schoenholz Bee Designed by Gina Rossi Production by Christopher Zichello Typeset in Adobe Garamond Printed on Aberdeen Silk by Stamperia Valdonega, S.R.L., Verona 2000 The Museum of Modern Art, New York Text 2000 John Szarkowski. All rights reserved. Copyright for the photographs reproduced in this book is held by the photographers heirs; they may not be reproduced in any form without the permission of the copyright holders. The following credits appear at the request of the photographers representatives. All works by Atget The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Page 12: Berenice Abbott. Eugène Atget. 1927. Gelatin silver print. Commerce Graphics. Page 14: Charles Marville. Rue de Choiseul, Paris. c. 1865. Albumen silver print from a wet-collodion glass negative. Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Page 19: Walker Evans. Stamped Tin Relic. 1929. Gelatin silver print. Walker Evans Archive. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 00-102226 ISBN 0-87070-094-4 Published by The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53 Street, New York, New York 10019. www.moma.org Distributed by Simon and Schuster Cover: Eugène Atget. Versailles, parc. (1901) Printed in Italy
C O N T E N T S Acknowledgments 7 I N T RO D U C T I O N 11 P L AT E S 21 Notes to the Texts 222 Notes to the Plates 223 Trustees of The Museum of Modern Art 224
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S I am in debt to all those who have written about Eugène Atget even those who have written in French, whom I have understood very imperfectly, or in German, whom I have understood not at all, except through the courtesy of an intermediary. Even in these cases, I am the beneficiary of at least part of their thought, as it has been recast in the thought of others. Ultimately, the thoughts that we hold with reasonable confidence are doubtless the constructions of a community. Nevertheless, I am especially indebted to the writings of Ferdinand Reyher, John Fraser, and my friend and colleague Maria Morris Hambourg, who seem to have written about Atget with special sensitivity and precision. I am also grateful for what I have learned about Atget from looking at the work of photographers who learned so much from him, especially (of course) Walker Evans and Lee Friedlander. Like everyone else who is interested in the problem of printing photographs in ink, I am grateful to Richard Benson, who has made better books possible. It was Benson who, years ago, helped the Museum solve the very complex problem of reproducing Atget s prints, and his advice on this volume has been of invaluable assistance to Christopher Zichello, the production manager for this book, and to me. My thanks go to Chris for his meticulous attention to all the details of production and to Gina Rossi for her sensitive design for this volume. The three successive Atget curators at The Museum of Modern Art Yolanda Terbell, Barbara Michaels, and Maria Hambourg established between 1968 and 1985 a structured body of objective knowledge based on the primary evidence of the work itself. The indispensable work of Terbell and Michaels was completed and resolved in the synthesis of Hambourg, whose solution to the problem of dating Atget s work provided the framework on which all subsequent analysis would depend. As I have said elsewhere, her work constitutes the most important achievement in Atget scholarship. The fruits of that work might still be the privileged resource of a few scholars if it had not been for the support of the four-volume The Work of Atget (1981 85) by Springs Industries, with its enthusiastic chairmen Peter G. Scotese and (later) Walter Elisha. In many ways, the current book is a child of the earlier volumes. The staff of the Museum s Department of Photography has been unfailingly gracious and helpful, and I must especially thank Sarah Hermanson for her imaginative assistance with a variety of research problems. My deepest gratitude must go to Peter Galassi, Chief Curator in the department, for his encouragement and incisive criticism. I owe a debt of gratitude as well to the Museum s publisher Michael Maegraith, whose understanding and imaginative support made this endeavor possible. Finally, I would like to thank my editor Harriet Schoenholz Bee, who has once again succeeded in improving my prose without damaging our friendship. John Szarkowski 7