Auto Showroom, Paris

Expand

IIIFView PDF

Auto Showroom, Paris

Artist Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)

Dateabout 1920

DimensionsImage: 6 7/16 x 8 9/16 in. (16.4 x 21.7 cm)

MediumAlbumen print

ClassificationPhotographs

Credit LinePurchased with funds given by an anonymous donor

Object number

1976.135

Not on View

Label TextJohn Szarkowski, noted teacher and Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, commented about Eugène Atget, “his pictures are as plain and transparent and precious as water. Individually they are like short beautiful sentences made of small and common words. Collectively they are a testament to the simplicity of a genius.” Atget gleaned poetic visions from every-day scenes overlooked by everyone else. Artists like Maurice Utrillo, Georges Braque, and especially the Surrealist Man Ray, where fascinated by Atget’s mysterious cityscapes, which were unadorned and often devoid of people. In this photograph, documenting the changing city about him, Atget uses the reflections on the windows of the showroom, obscuring the advance of technology represented by the automobiles, and overlaying them with the image of the city.Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, Past and Present: Photographs from the Permanent Collection, Jan 22 - June 8, 1999 (no cat.)

Toledo Museum of Art, Refraction/Reflection, April 20-September 2, 2012.