Atget by Berenice Abbott (1927), Berenice Abbott by Man Ray (1921)
January is a slow month for museum shows in New York. Sleepy people are still getting back from the holidays, and most shows close quietly in the middle of the month. Plus, it’s cold. Instead of venturing to a gallery, this month I recommend you read a good book, specifically Old Paris and Changing New York: Photographs by Eugène Atget and Berenice Abbott. Both photographers had museum shows in 2023 — Abbott at the Met, and Atget at the Getty — but this book is the only place to see their work together.
The story of the two photographers is surprising and lovely. They are both separately famous as documentarians of “the city” : Atget for his huge archive of unceremonious pictures of Paris at the turn of the century, and Abbott for her photographs of New York in the 20s and 30s. (If you picture “historical” Paris or New York, you can thank Atget and Abbott for whatever comes to mind.) What’s less well known is the friendship between the two during the last years of Atget’s life, Atget dying and impoverished and Abott a bright young star of Paris’ artistic expat circles.
Abbott moved to Paris from New York in 1921 to study sculpture and see what there was to see. She began assisting Man Ray in his photography studio, and after borrowing his equipment realized she had a talent. She became so popular, nearly eclipsing Man Ray as “the” photographer of the moment, that he eventually fired her from jealousy (the tipping point was Peggy Guggenheim calling his studio requesting Abottt instead of him — Guggenheim felt so guilty for getting Abbott fired that she bought Abbott her first camera). Man Ray’s studio had the benefit of being down the street from Atget’s home on Rue Campagne-Première, and before getting fired Abbott spent a good deal of time with him, discussing photography and eventually taking his only three existing likenesses. He didn’t have long to live, and when Atget died Berenice stumbled into what would become a pillar of her life: preserving and promoting the Atget archive.
Woman in Doorway (1921) and Rue des Chantres (1923) by Atget
When Abbott met Atget, his small apartment and worn, traditional clothes belied just how important he was. Eugène Atget is famous in the history of photography for his straightforward, unromantic photographs of Paris at the turn of the 20th century. At the time the city of Paris was reshaping itself, knocking down old neighborhoods wholesale to construct new ones. In a very French appreciation of their own culture, the city government set up a program to document the neighborhoods that were disappearing, and Atget spent several decades selling his photographs to the Bibliothèque Nationale. This was no small feat — the camera and equipment weighed over 40 pounds, and his decades of carrying the equipment around the city left him with a permanent hunch.
What’s striking about Atget’s work is the emptiness. When we think of a cityscape we think of hustle and bustle, rushing people — but Atget’s Paris is deserted and devoid of passerby. Silent corners in front of boulangeries, shacks at the edge of the city, a prostitute lingering in a doorway: he considered his photographs more “documentation” and less fine art. It’s this desire to make use of photography’s unique recording capabilities that makes Atget’s work so different from any other, as most photographers at the time were trying to recreate romanticism found in paintings. It was this modern sensibility that drew Abbott to his work.
Canyon: Broadway and Exchange (1936) by Abbott, Ragpickers’ Hut (1910) by Atget
There’s something truly delightful in imagining this pairing of opposites: the old Frenchman, grumpy and poor but an unmitigated giant in his field, sharing his knowledge with the gorgeous young American, glamorous, lesbian and only just starting her career. Their artistic exchange must have been enormous. At least for Abbott, whose dizzying documentation of New York’s skyscrapers and laundromats, Chinese restaurants and hot dog carts draw direct inspiration from Atget’s twisting streets and shop windows. Atget never got to see Abbott’s New York work, but of Atget she said he photographed Paris “with the vision of a poet.”
What the two archives have in common is the fascination they have for anyone who loves New York, loves Paris, or loves history — they go beyond artistic interest (seeing milk wagons or barefoot street urchins on the Lower East Side is fascinating for anyone who’s had a coffee at Dudleys or walked past the line at Pianos). The evolution of both cities is of course remarkable, but there’s something unchanging about Paris whereas in New York the changes feel profound. Abbott captured the transition into modernity in a way that both echoes Atget and moves his legacy forward, applying his same straightforward lens to decidedly American things like looming modern buildings, rushing crowds, ten-cent shaves and West Village corners. The smooth, shadowy building in Fifth Avenue (1936) has the makings of a Hopper painting, eerily still and iconically American. And underneath a bold font declaring “PIES” and the retro-futuristic machines dispensing them, the lonely lunchtime diner in Automat (1936) feels like he stepped out of a ‘40s film noir.
Automat and Fifth Avenue, both 1936, by Abbott
Both photographers’ work succeeds at what I think all art ought to do — make you stop and look at your own life a little more closely. It’s easy to forget just how remarkable afternoon shadows on a skyscraper are, or how much history is behind the brick on the Lower East Side, or even just how unintentionally eye-catching light through a subway grate can be.
When Atget died in 1927, it had become fashionable among the creative elite to pay a visit to his studio in Montparnasse. His work’s famous neutrality provided a blank canvas to find meaning, and towards the end of his life Surrealists like Man Ray and André Breton declared him one of their own — without his permission, of course, and with a level of mockery and irony. Their support didn’t go beyond the occasional inclusion in a magazine, and his name likely would have floated away into the back channels of art history without Abbott’s tireless promotion of his work. Just as we wouldn’t know about Van Gogh without the dedication of his sister-in-law Johanna, Abbott worked a PR miracle in getting articles written and shows staged of his work, eventually cementing his name while making her own. The result — two famous photographers and two amazing oeuvres for the world to enjoy — is a powerful example of how you need community, the ability to share the spotlight — and dare I say friendship? to make an impact. Creating in a vacuum won’t get you very far.
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Beautiful. And learned a lot 🙏