Page 34 - Studio International - December 1971

intelligent—and essential—respect for the that are pure Atget; they are almost invariably better photographs from the belle époque would of course be
soaked-up blacks and burned-up whites in a designed than the ones that have gone 'modern'—i.e., enormously interesting, as Jean Roman's Paris Fin de
debased-Bauhaus—in their lettering. Siècle, trans. James Emmons (New York, 196o), and
number of the pictures." Such an edition might
29 See also in this connection the superb picture of the 1966 number of Camera to which I have already
need subsidizing by a foundation, but it would trees, a pissoir, and advertisement-covered walls in referred demonstrate. To put one together, however,
immensely deserve and repay it, since for the Camera (December 1966), p 57. So far as I know, the one would need a considerably more acute critical eye
picture had never been reproduced earlier. This is one than Mr Trouenberg displays. It isn't really a surprise
first time something like justice would have been
of the surprises that I referred to at the outset of this to find Mr Trouenberg remarking blandly in his
done to one of the greatest twentieth-century paper. The other is the photograph of the urn. Both, it concluding paragraph that 'the formal question of
artists. And those of us who know and love Atget seems worth noting, came from private collections— whether photography is an art may never be fully
respectively those of M Yvan Christ and M André resolved.' (p 28).
already would not have to piece him together
Jammes. 40 The subject of photographic printing is a highly
from at least sixteen different printed sources 'Polite Essays (London, 1937), p 167. complex one, both technically and esthetically. Atget's
and even then not be confident that there aren't 31 'Entretien avec Georges Franju', Positif, 25-26 pictures, for instance, now exist for us in at least eight
(1957), p. 18. different styles of more or less plausible printing—
pictures still to come that are as great as any by
32 Leroy, p. 8. those of the three books that I have referred to, that of
him that we now have.41 "Abbott, 'Atget; Forerunner' (November), p 76. Camera, that of Miss Abbott's portfolio of prints made
34The series, it can be added here, was apparently by herself from Atget's negatives, that of at least one
26 See Walker Evans, American Photographs (New commissioned to illustrate a book on prostitution by travelling show, also made from Atget's negatives,
York, 1938), and Robert Frank, Les Americains (Paris the painter André Dignimont. So far as I have been and that (or rather those, for they are not
1958). The two photographs by Evans that I refer to able to discover, the book never appeared. homogeneous) of the prints made by Atget and his
in the next sentence are to be found on pp 28. and 87 "Miss Abbott's own superb portraits of Atget himself wife. A whole paper could be written on this subject. I
of American Photographs. must of course be mentioned at this point. can only affirm here that of the reproductions that
27Frank himself acknowledges indebtedness to Evans 36 See Dorothea Lange and Paul Schuster Taylor, have been published so far, the ones in Camera seem
in U.S. Camera 1958 (New York, 1957), p 9o, but of An American Exodus (New York, 1930). to me the best.
course it is patent in his work itself. I have been told 37 For the mingled benefits and drawbacks of Strand's 411 will add that Mr Katz seems to me absolutely
that he studied formally under Alexey Brodovitch. approach, see especially Un Paese, text by Cesare right when he says that Atget's oeuvre 'belongs in a
However, the technical 'wrongness' of Brodovitch's Zavattini (n.p., 1955). Several of the portraits in it are public institution or a major collection of modern art,
Ballet; zoo Photographs, text by Edwin Denby (New masterpieces. where administrative and scholarly care can be
York, 1945), is very different in form from either 38 World of Atget, xix. provided by endowment or foundation funds. There
Evans's or Frank's. 39As to Mr Trottenberg's quasi-documentary should be an Atget Room in a museum, with a
28There are still a good many store-fronts in France ambition, an intelligent anthology of really live continuous, changing exhibition.' (35)
18

12 Maison Close
13 Waste-paper men
14 Tramp's hut
15 Boulangerie
16 Urn amid nettles

17 The night-club `L'Enfer'
18 Urn with geraniums in front of pond
246