Eugène Atget
[Photographer, b. 1857, Paris, France, d. 1927, Paris.]
Now that I am approaching old age—that is to say, seventy years old—and have neither heir nor successor, I am worried and tormented about the future of this beautiful collection of negatives, which could fall into hands unaware of its import and ultimately disappear, without benefiting anyone.
(1920)
For more than twenty years by my own work and personal initiative, I have gathered from all the old streets of Vieux Paris photographic plates, 18 x 24 format, artistic documents of the beautiful civil architecture of the 16th to the 19th century: the old hôtels, historic or curious houses, beautiful facades, beautiful doors, beautiful woodwork, door knockers, old fountains... This vast artistic and documentary collection is today complete. I can truthfully say that I possess all of Vieux Paris.