Atget's Paris (TASCHEN Icons Series)

Customer Reviews:

A beautiful yet inexpensive introduction to Atget's Paris.......2003-01-12

This is one of the more unusual books on my shelves, in that physically it is designed to bear a resemblence on its exterior to some travel guides. The photograph above doesn't do it justice. The material is kivar-like, and his famous photograph of the entrance to the Moulin Rouge is tinted in red and yellow. Inside, the photographs are arranged thematically, according such topics as Salesman and Traders on the Streets of Paris, or Trades, Shops, and Window Displays, or interiors of Parisian homes, or, my favorite, Old Paris.

As the introduction of the book points out, Atget was the great photographic recorder of Old Paris. It is to Paris of the turn of the 19th to the 20th century what Weegee was to lower Manhattan. The pictures in this book are nothing short of remarkable, and to look at them for any length of time helps transport one, to the extent that that is possible, to a world that no longer exists. This is not beautiful, genteel Paris. It isn't the Paris of Proust. It is more the Paris of Baudelaire fifty years down the road, the Paris of Toulouse-Latrec.

This without any question the finest inexpensive edition of Atget's photographs currently available, and since Atget is the predominant photographer of the Paris of a hundred years ago, the best inexpensive book of photographs of Old Paris.

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Unknown Paris

"Unknown Paris" Review

Eugene Atget: Unknown Paris
David Harris
Manufacturer: New Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Atget: Paris in Detail

Eugene Atget (Aperture Masters of Photography)

Brassai : Paris By Night

Andre Kertesz (Aperture Masters of Photography)

Atget Atget

ASIN: 1565848683

Book Description

Over 200 never-before-published photographs from one of the twentieth century's most innovative photographers.

Atget reached the pole of utmost mastery; but with the bitter modesty of a great craftsman who always lives in the shadows, he neglected to plant his flag there. Therefore many are able to flatter themselves that they have discovered the pole, even though Atget was there before them.—Walter Benjamin

For 30 years, Eugène Atget photographed the historic core of Paris, its buildings and monuments, its ancient streets and civic spaces, its public parks and gardens. With the exception of his earliest photographs, he chose not to represent a particular site by a single, definitive photograph but produced sequences of interrelated images that create a cumulative portrait.

A collection of case studies of archetypal urban settings, this book examines Atget's approach to photography. It features 240 of his photographs—nearly all of which have never been published—assembled to display the integral relationship between the photographer's working method and his subject matter, revealing the character of le Vieux Paris itself.

A natural companion to the New Press's Berenice Abbott: Changing New York, Eugène Atget is the product of an exhibit mounted in response to Abbott's work and reflective of the two photographers' shared vision.

Customer Reviews:

Unknown Paris.......2005-06-14

What has already been said is wonderful, I just want to add that these are black and white photos-a lot of late 1800's Paris;no advertising on buildings, a mood of being there is created, a sense of a more sedate time is created in these photos, a slower pace is the feeling here. No modern hectic, rush, stress,get-ahead Paris that can be currently photographed. These old photos are so very well done, they are still pleasurable to view.

"Unknown Paris" Review.......2004-08-18

This book does a very good job of piecing together Atget's photography techniques and explorations. it goes deeply into the subject of Atget's "documentary" style of photography in Paris. He took many pictures of the same spaces but from different angles to achieve different effects. Full prints of his photographs constitute more than half of the book, and balance out the more lengthy explanations by David Harris. This book is organized into three main sections which make for easy navigation through its pages. The first three chapters analyze Atget's photographic style, his life as a commercial photographer, and his life at work. The bulk of the book, and the most interesting part, showcases the seven Parisian sites where he took many of his photographs. Lastly is a short conclusion and thumbnails of his photos displayed in the back of the book. Although the photographs may not be that interesting to the average person, photographers will enjoy Atget's choice of historic subjects and his dedication to documenting the city of Paris. Atget took over five thousand exposures of the city. His pictures explore the exciting subtleties of his home.

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Atget the Pioneer
Jean-Claude Lemagny , Sylvie Aubenas , Pierre Borhan , Luce Lebart , Eugene Atget , and France) Hotel De Sully (Paris
Manufacturer: Prestel
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Eugene Atget (Aperture Masters of Photography)

ASIN: 379132456X

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New Edition with better reproductions
wonderful pictures, but...
Thick, but of mediocre quality
The beauty and degradation of a great city...

Atget Paris
Laure Beaumont-Maillet
Manufacturer: Gingko Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3927258075

Book Description

From 1897 until his death in 1927 Atget was photographer of Paris par excellence. This book brings together 840 of his images arranged district by district, neighborhood by neighborhood-it is the most prolific collection of his work ever published. To turn the pages is to take an unforgettable stroll through the eerie, empty streets of Paris 70 years ago. It is a strange, largely unpeopled world where objects project an uncanny density: shoes dangling in a shop window, or the milk cart laden with cans and equipped with whip and reins but no driver. This is Atget's Paris and in typical Atget style those humans that do appear are the humble tradespeople, the ragpickers, the prostitutes.

Although hailed by the surrealists for the poetic quality of his images, Atget refused to accept that he was an artist, claiming that the pictures he took were simply documents. He has become known as the first modern photographer and had the unique ability to inject a tragic quality into ordinary things. As a special tribute this book has been formatted in the shape of a Parisian cobblestone.

Customer Reviews:

New Edition with better reproductions.......2007-08-26

It appears that some reviews may be referring to previous edtions of this classic volume on Atget. The latest (2007) edition is printed and bound in a far superior volume. The photographic reproductions along with the paper and binding are both greatly improved. Highly recommended.

wonderful pictures, but..........2005-10-07

I was recommended this book by a valued friend who loved this. I can understand his opinion, Atget took lovely pictures of a world that seems beautiful in a ghostly way. People in that world weren't tall and pretty but there is photographic beauty in their pictures. And the streets always seem incredibly empty and misty and dusty. Is this really the city that was huge and vibrant already back then?

The pictures are lovely and interesting. And the book is very, very thick and contains a massive amount of Atget's photos, but the book is only about the normal pocket-book size, so when there are pages with even two pictures, the photos are bound to be small. At the same time I found a French edition of a series of French master photographers in the art-book size and it really brought up these photos better. But I got this book used through Amazon in a ridiculously low price and it's not exactly a bad edition. The pictures are on quality paper and there are so many of them that you'll spend many nights flicking through this book. It just could be bigger...

Thick, but of mediocre quality.......2003-01-05

Granted, this may be the most extensive collection of Atget's Paris work in one volume, but the quality of the photographic reproductions leaves a lot to be desired. Although not as exhaustive, Andreas Krase's "Atget's Paris" contains beautiful, high- quality reproductions of a large number of Atget's Paris photos. The Krase book also contains a very well written and informative essay on Atget's personal history and work. For true Atget junkies, you may want to own both; but if you can only have one, or if you want the one that best "transports" you into Atget's paris, go for the Krase book. ...and finally for real buffs of old Paris photos (especially pre-Hausmannization), you may try to seek out the work of the photographer Marville (good luck, unfortunately it seems his stuff is out-of-print at present), or the Panaromanic Photograph collection in the "American Memory" collection of the Library of Congress...

The beauty and degradation of a great city..........2001-11-30

This book is perhaps one of the most wonderful collections of photographs that I have ever had the pleasure of owning. Eugène Atget, a failed actor, painter, sailor, and soldier, eventually settled on photography as a career some thirty-odd years into his life, and set out to make a photographic record of the whole of Paris at the end of the nineteenth century. By 1920, some 4,000 negatives existed, from which many have been culled for the present volume.

Of course, as cities, go, Paris, like London or Rome, has perhaps more than its share of photogenic sites. However, oddly enough, considering that these photos are more than three quarters of a century old, no book has ever reproduced the experience of Paris more to my taste than this collection of Atget's work. Organised by arrondissement (the subsections into which the whole of Paris is divided), the book offers a systematic voyage past landmarks familiar and unfamiliar. Images of the Jardin des Tuilleries, Notre Dame, the Palais du Louvre, the Champs-Elysées and so many other familiar names and places are here. Faces of long-dead Parisians stare out from streets now populated by their descendants. It is as though the very images, bathed in light now a century gone, come to life in these photos. All the majesty and squalor, the beauty and degradation of a great city; these things are all captured by Atget's lens. The effect is moving and eerie, and suits what is arguably the Continent's greatest city down to the ground.

And, on a strictly personal note, one of my favourite photos is taken from the 17th Arrondissement, in the Quartier des Ternes. It is of a café in the Avenue de la Grande-Armée, dated 1924 or 1925, empty chairs and tables bathed in sunlight, and an advert for Bass Extra Stout painted on the window! Truly a sublime moment.

Do yourself a favour, if you enjoy old photographs or love Paris, or both. Find a copy of this book, and enjoy it on those days when you can't actually be there.

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Pocket Sized Atget

A superbly presented and invaluable contribution

19TH CENTURY PARIS PASSIONATELY DOCUMENTED FOR POSTERITY

breathtaking views of Paris in the past

Atget's Simple Documents

Eugene Atget (Phaidon 55s)
Gerry Badger
Manufacturer: Phaidon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Andre Kertesz (Aperture Masters of Photography)

ASIN: 0714840491

Product Description

The 55 Series This is one of the most unique monograph series in the history of photography! The 55 Series represents the work of many of photography s most important figures. Each book contains 55 of the photographer s key works, presented chronologically and through them tells the photographer s own story. These books are small, but surprisingly rich in content and reproduction quality. They are a most economical way to bring the world of photography into your home. Each book is 128 pp. 6 1/4 x 5 3/4 , softbound.

Customer Reviews:

Pocket Sized Atget.......2004-06-17

Eugene Atget spent his 30 years in photography making over 10,000 large-plate negatives of the art, architecture, and lives of Paris. His photographs capture the beauty and emotion of Paris in the late 1800s. Atget does an amazing job of engulfing the viewer into the Paris city life. His pictures of storefronts and street scenes are amazingly lit and present a romantic yet true to life view of Paris.
This small but powerful book is one of many in the Phaidon 55 series. The small size is great for carrying around, and even though the pictures are smaller then those in most photography books, they still hold true to the original prints. There is a short introduction and history of the photographer at the beginning. Each picture is accompanied by a brief description and insight into the photograph. Even though the size is smaller then most photography books, the images are still great quality, and for the price you can't go wrong.

A superbly presented and invaluable contribution.......2001-03-02

Eugene Atget (1857-1927) spent almost thirty years photographing details of often inconspicuous Parisian buildings, side streets, cul-de-sacs, and public sculptures. In Focus: Eugene Atget brings together more than 50 of the J. Paul Getty Museum's 295 photographs by Atget, with commentary on each image by associate curator of photographs at the Getty Museum, Gordon Baldwin. Atget's photograph and Baldwin's commentary are enhanced with a chronological overview of Atget's life and an edited transcript of a colloquium on his career. In Focus: Eugene Atget is a superbly presented and invaluable contribution to the history of photography.

19TH CENTURY PARIS PASSIONATELY DOCUMENTED FOR POSTERITY.......2001-01-18

Eugene Atget (1857-1927) is the undisputed photo-documentarian of 19th century Paris. With studious attention to detail, Atget seemingly photographed every intimate corner of his much-loved city. Leaving the well-known monuments and boulevards to others, Atget instead concentrated on the atmospheric fabric of everyday Paris, photographing shops and window displays, cobbled streets, doorways, stairways, vehicles, churches, amusement parks, street-peddlers and prostitutes.

Unraveling the mystery of Eugène Atget's life and work is easier said than done. Now considered to be one of history's most important photographers, Atget was relatively unknown during his lifetime. Posthumously famous for his photographs, Atget in fact made only a humble living selling his prints to architects, artists, and institutions.

Atget wrote in 1920, "I may say that I have in my possession all of Old Paris." His systematic method of photographing Paris street by street is spellbinding, and the result is a detailed catalogue of 19th century Paris. The result of Eugène Atget's life's work is gathered here in a heartbreakingly beautiful book for lovers of Paris, architecture, and photography.

breathtaking views of Paris in the past.......2000-12-30

I received this book as a gift because not only do I collect photography books but I also frequently go to Paris because I love the city. This book is full of full page photos of Paris in the past and has a dreamy quality of the day to day events and sites of Paris and the surrounding areas. It's a great collectible book for photography fans and Paris lovers.

Atget's Simple Documents.......2000-08-12

The J. Paul Getty Museum's latest photography book installment - focusing on the work of Eugene Atget, offers the best example of curators creating much ado about an artists work, through speculation and second-guessing. This merely justifies the curator's reason for employment, while boring the reader with a treasure trove of euphemisms and art-speak banter. That we learn more about each speaker's own Rorschach test interpretation of the photographs and less on the artist is not the point. The point is, why does the final third of the book contain this colloquium, when it could easily have been filled with more samplings from the Museum's 295 Atget holdings? Atget's images of Paris are brilliant for what they represent: a visual recording of what he considered worth preserving in pictures. His subject matter ranged from buildings and statues - to interiors, street merchants, and anything worthy of pursuing photographically in and around Paris. Atget's photographs gain their strength due to their simplicity; any further interpretation renders them less for their intent - which was purely documentation. Skip the verbiage contained in "Eugene Atget: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum", and just enjoy Atget's simple photographs of his beloved Paris.

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It says detail. It is
Paris in Detail
Reviews and book do not correlate

Atget: Paris in Detail
Josiane Sartre
Manufacturer: Flammarion
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 2080107895
Release Date: 2002-10-25

Book Description

The works of French photographer Eugene Atget (1857-1927) can be considered as prototypes for some of the great aesthetic movements (cubism, surrealism, conceptualism) that continue to influence modern and contemporary art. His detailed visual record of Paris and its environs were sold to painters to use as source material, and later to institutions dedicated to the preservation of the city's past. The Bibliotheque des Arts Decoratifs in Paris acquired nearly 1800 poetic images of decorative details such as boiseries, door knockers, staircase balustrades, garden ornaments, and magnificent plaster work from Atget's studio.

The selection of more than 300 works exquisitely reproduced in this volume were chosen not only for their documentary record of the decorative splendors of Paris, but also for their concentration on the subtleties of form and their stunning aesthetic power. Atget's continued use of a large format view camera and glass plate negatives, allowed for bigger negatives that resulted in fine details and richly toned images. His encyclopedic purpose and the simplicity of his method are so timeless that his work still fascinates today. The poetic impassivity of the images, the detailed beauty of their subjects, and the simple juxtaposition of their proportions will be an inspiration to all those interested in design and the decorative arts as well as those interested in the history of photography.

Customer Reviews:

It says detail. It is.......2007-01-16

Just as the wrought iron ornamentation made New Orleans in a way, so too is Paris influenced by its ornamentation. The title of the book makes it clear what it is. The MOMA book is not so much better than it is less focused on a single area. Atget sometimes sought to catalog much of Paris.

A great deal of the ornamentation remains,but it is theatened. by a change in style. But as someone who spent many happy days drawing in the richness of things like doors and staircases and knobs that bar the entry to courtyards, it is a touch that reminds me of the Paris that was and that is.

It could perhaps have been better described and someimes a book should be required to have at least some images of what's in it. This is one. But don't criticize a book for being exactly what it's supposed to be. It suits my taste fine. It wouldn't be my first Atget book, but I'm grateful to have it.

Paris in Detail.......2005-10-10

I recently bought Paris in Detail.
Paris in Detail is literally that, lots of detailled close up photos of Paris doorways, arches, detailled doorframes, and intricate wrought iron stairways. Although there is a few photos of detailled sculptures in it, the majority of the book focusses on doors, metal doorknockers, fireplaces, doorways and stairwells of old style Paris. The pages in the book are all black and white photos mostly covering the whole of each page. Many of the photos are of late 1890's in Paris.

Reviewed By Liz Kelly

Reviews and book do not correlate.......2004-07-12

These reviews refer to the Museum of Modern Art Atget book- not the Paris in Detail book. Click under "all editions" to see the MOMA book. Amazon has to rectify this. I think the MOMA book deserves 5 stars. I have not seen the Paris in Detail book.

Customer Reviews:

Nice overview--and good for history fans also.......2003-06-12

This isn't the best collection of Atget's work, but it was a great buy at the price, I thought, and the reproductions (in my copy at least) are decent. Anyone interested in history might also find it interesting to see what Paris looked like in Atget's day.

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Atget Paris
Eugene; Beaumont-Maillet, Laure (editor) Atget
Manufacturer: Hazan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000PEX3TQ

Atget's Seven Albums (Yale Publications in the History of Art)

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Atget's Seven Albums (Yale Publications in the History of Art)
Molly Nesbit
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Between 1909 and 1915 Eug_ne Atget produced seven albums filled with photographs of Paris at the height of its belle _poque. This book presents Atget`s albums in full for the first time, edited with the sequencing and repetition that the great photographer intended. In addition, Atget`s pictures are analyzed in an altogether new way: as commercial picture documents produced by a photographer for the artists, archivists, antiquarians, designers, and builders who were his clients. Atget`s Seven Albums is thus many books-a critical edition, a fresh view of Atget`s work, a new kind of history of photography, and a social history of art and of Paris in the early twentieth century.

Atget: Life in Paris (Pocket Archives, 10)

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Valuable research on Paris at the turn of the century

Atget: Life in Paris (Pocket Archives, 10)
Eugene Atget , and Guillaume Le Gall
Manufacturer: Hazan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Valuable research on Paris at the turn of the century.......1999-01-22

This book is a fabulous addition to my research library. The photographs of vendors and their wares; storefronts and their dressing; and people living their lives on the streets of Paris are invaluable to me as an opera set dresser and propmaster. The photographs are, of course, beautiful in their own right; and the text is informative, poetic, and interesting.

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