Atget and Marville, Photographers of Paris

Eugène Atget (1857–1927), often considered the most distinguished practitioner in the medium of photography, making it not simply a service for others, such as architects, planners, or archivists, but as a creative response to new conditions of existence, was born near Bordeaux. He came to Paris to attempt to be an actor, and then to paint, which he continued to do for the rest of his life. But then after around 1892, he became a photographer. Living with his companion, an actress, Valentine Delafosse Compagnon (1847–1926), whose death he barely survived, in 17 bis, rue Campagne-Première, Montparnasse, off the Blvd. Raspail, Atget daily heaved around Paris a heavy camera, wooden tripod, and glass plateholders, to record “Vieux Paris,” then the “Topographie du Vieux Paris,” and the “Environs” of Paris, going into smaller towns around the city and concentrating too on eighteenth-century parks, such as those at Versailles, photographed after 1901, and Saint-Cloud, especially after 1904....