1852–1934 · United States · Photographer
Gertrude Kasebier
Soft-focus Pictorialist portraits of mothers, children and sitters at rest.
The Manger, 1899Source: Wikipedia
PHOTOGRAPHER · 1857–1927 · FRANCE
Eugene Atget
Patient, empty-street records of old Paris before modernisation.
- Born
- 1857
- Died
- 1927
- Country
- France
- Field
- Photographer
KNOWN FOR
- 1927Avenue des Gobelins
- 1898Organ Grinder
WHY THEY MATTER
The Museum of Modern Art bought his archive in 1968 and staged four successive exhibitions of his work between 1981 and 1985.
THE LIFE
Atget was a former sailor and actor who set out to record the architecture and streets of Paris before they disappeared. He sold his prints to artists and craftspeople and was admired by the Surrealists, but never saw wide fame. Berenice Abbott championed his work after his death and sold her collection to the Museum of Modern Art in 1968. He worked with a large wooden bellows camera long after lighter cameras were available.
WHAT THEY SHOT WITH
Large-format wooden bellows view camera
Also born in 1850–1899
1864–1946 · United States · Photographer
Alfred Stieglitz
From Pictorialism to sharp modernism, with a deep belief in photography as art.
The Steerage, 1907Source: Wikipedia
1874–1940 · United States · Photographer
Lewis Hine
Direct, dignified portraits of working children and labourers.
Young Doffers in the Elk Cotton Mills, 1910Source: Wikipedia
1876–1964 · Germany · Photographer
August Sander
Typological portraits of every class and trade, frontal and calm.
Face of Our Time (Antlitz der Zeit), 1929Source: Wikipedia
1879–1973 · United States · Photographer
Edward Steichen
Painterly early work, then glossy modern fashion and celebrity portraits.
The Flatiron, 1904Source: Wikipedia
1883–1976 · United States · Photographer
Imogen Cunningham
Sharp-focus studies of plants, bodies and industrial forms.
Magnolia Blossom, 1925Source: Wikipedia