| When this photograph of a Parisian organ-grinder was made, life on the street
was a common form of entertainment. Cinema was a brandnew art and television
was not yet imagined. Between 1898 and 1901, early in his career as a photographer,
Eugène Atget made a series of portraits of the denizens of the rue.
This picture belongs to a series of petits metiers, a common pictorial tradition
since
at least the seventeenth century. Always conscious of a world that was about
to disappear, Atget published about eighty of his portraits of street tradespeople
as postcards in 1905.
Except for this series, Atget’s photographs are usually devoid of people.
We find quite the opposite in Joueur d’orgue, one of Atget’s few
records of a person smiling. The tiny woman on the right simply radiates life,
all the more so in contrast to her dour companion. This image of people isolated
against a wall is an atypical work by Atget, yet it is emblematic of all his
work. At once direct, simple, and straightforward, it contains great drama
and mystery provided by these wonderful characters. . . .
- Stuart Alexander, Independent Curator and Scholar |
Text excerpted from A Capital Collection: Masterworks from
the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
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