Paris: Eugène Atget

Paris: Eugène Atget
Edited by Hans Christian Adam, Essay by Andreas Krase
Taschen 2000
Hardback, colour d/w, 356 x 274 mm, 252 pages
£19.99

Eugène Atget (1857-1927) is the photographer of turn-of-the-century Paris. Narrow alleyways and courtyards, dilapidated buildings and dingy yet picturesque doorways - no-one matched the way he captured the corners of the metropolis that were threatened by extinction. Yet he also photographed imposing town-house façades and magnificent interiors. Throughout the years he systematically created his own visual atlas of the city, and finally wrote with pride: "I have in my possession all of old Paris".

The Surrealists were the first to discover his atmospheric shots of parks and enigmatic settings of display mannequins. Today, Atget's work is hailed as a photographic milestone on the road to Modernism.