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Lot 40*
EUGÈNE ATGET(1856-1927)Fête du Trône
25 March 2021, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£22,000 - £28,000
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EUGÈNE ATGET (1856-1927)
Fête du Trône, 1926
Gold toned printing out paper print, titled, numbered '104', '17 bis' in pencil and credit stamp on the verso.
17.8 x 22.8cm (7 x 9in)
Gold toned printing out paper print, titled, numbered '104', '17 bis' in pencil and credit stamp on the verso.
17.8 x 22.8cm (7 x 9in)
Footnotes
Provenance
Tristan Tzara, Paris (acquired directly from the artist).
Marie-Thérèse Tzara (by descent from the above).
Anon. sale, Christie's, New York, 29 April 1999, lot 172.
Private collection, US.
For almost three decades, Eugène Atget created a meticulous archive of his photographs of a Paris that was being replaced by a more modern (and to him, hateful) infrastructure. In Fête du Trône, one of Atget's extraordinary images of the city's ancient fairground, he captures a lively mural of nymphs dancing in a shadowy bay - an almost dreamlike, proto-Surrealist image.
While Atget would have denied any direct association with the Surrealists, it was thanks to Man Ray and his circle that his work became recognized as more than just an eccentric and naive visual record of the old city. Man Ray, a prominent member of the Surrealists and Atget's neighbour, included a selection of the older photographer's work in the first official review of the Surrealists La Révolution Surréaliste, issued in June 1926, the year Fête du Trône was created.
Man Ray probably also introduced fellow artist Tristan Tzara to Atget's work. Tzara, a founder of the Dada movement and the original owner of the present work, found Atget's unconscious "surrealism" irresistible and used it as inspiration for his own his writings, poetry and art.
Man Ray's studio assistant, the young photographer Bernice Abbott, also became acquainted with Atget at around this time. After his death, she acquired the more than eight thousand prints left in his studio and subsequently brought Atget's photographs to the attention of the world.