Mac Orlan Pierre Preface by Atget Eug Ne (1 results)

Quarto. First Edition of the American version of the first monograph on Eug ne Atget, featuring 96 images of Paris in the 1920s mostly selected from the collection of Berenice Abbott, who came to admire Atget through her position at Man Ray's studio in Montmartre. Published in parallel with an exhibition of Atget's photographs at New York's Weyhe Gallery, this American version has a lengthy preface from Pierre Mac-Orlan (in French), 96 collotype plates, and a frontispiece portrait of Atget by Abbott herself. Without old inscriptions etc. Margins of paged a tuch tanned. A nice clean copy in burgundy, silk-covered boards, with gilt titles to front and spine, which is slightly sunned. The publisher's card slipcase is absent. A new edition was published by Errata in 2009. Atget's studio was on the same street in Montparnasse as the studio of the artist Man Ray who encountered the photographer's work around 1923. That year Man Ray hired Berenice Abbott as a darkroom assistant. He was looking for someone who knew nothing about photography (and would therefore be comfortable with his unorthodox practices). Abbott had come to Paris to be a sculptor but soon became a photographer. In 1925 Man Ray introduced Abbott to Atget's photographs and she became fascinated. In her rich introduction to the book The World of Atget (1964) she recalled 'Their impact was immediate and tremendous. There was a sudden flash of recognition the shock of realism unadorned. The subjects were not sensational, but nevertheless shocking in their very familiarity.' She visited Atget's studio many times and purchased prints when she could. In 1927 she photographed him in her own studio and one of the portraits from that sitting became the frontispiece of the book of his work. Book.…