Paraty in Focus 2011

Photo: Berenice Abbott

Eugène Atget, 1927

"Indeed, the prints of Atget Paris are the forerunners of surrealist photography, the vanguard of the truly significant single posting that surrealism could set in motion. It was the first to disinfect the suffocating atmosphere diffused by conventional photography, specializing in portraits during the time of decay. He Sancia this atmosphere, purifies it, begins to free the object of his aura, it incontrovertibly merit consisting of modern photography school. "

Walter Benjamin, 1931

"Atget was a very simple, almost naive, like a painter can be said on Sundays, but worked every day. When you play something in his surrealist magazine in 20 years - was a crowd standing on a bridge, contemplating an eclipse in the sky - I said: Do not put my name. They are simply a document that did. See, I did not want any publicity. "

Man Ray, 1974

So it was Eugène Atget (1857-1927), one of the largest and most magical photographers of all time. Another great artist, Berenice Abbott (1898-1991), preserved Atget's work after his death.

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