Looking at Atget /

Eugene Atget (1857-1927) is one of the notable photographers of the last century, thanks in part to John Szarkowski and Maria Morris Hambourg's The Work of Atget (4 v., 1981-85; v. 1, CH, May'82; v. 2, CH, Mar'83; v. 4, CH, Sep'85) published by the Museum of Modern Art. Sources of the MOMA collection were Berenice Abbott and Julian Levy, who acquired part of Atget's work on his death. Photographer Abbott worked in Paris; influential New York art dealer Levy also exhibited photography. This book documents the Levy collection acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2001. The text is by Barberie, a fellow of the museum charged with cataloguing the 361 prints and organizing an exhibition. Barberie draws on previously published literature but nonetheless offers insightful interpretations of the works. Importantly, he focuses on Abbott and Levy in the establishment of Atget's legacy and how each, with individual skills and interests, positioned the photographs in the fields of photography and art. The book also contains an in-depth scientific study of the materials Atget used, written by two Philadelphia museum conservators. An excellent publication in content and execution that, even now, may serve as a sound introduction to Atget's work. ^BSumming Up: Essential. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through faculty. P. C. Bunnell emeritus, Princeton University

Paris at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries is almost synonymous with the massive photographic record of Eugene Atget, whose achievement in capturing the entire range of life and location in the great capital-from prostitute to aristocrat, from stable to palace-is rivaled only by Balzac. Graced with excellent and well-chosen reproductions, including 10 that have never appeared before, Barberie's book is a keen and subtle overview of the photographer's work. And it is conveniently published to coincide with this fall's much-anticipated Atget retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The show is derived from two important collections: that of fellow photographer Berenice Abbott, who purchased the contents of Atget's studio at his death in 1927, and that of dealer Julien Levy, who purchased thousands of images from Abbott and helped her establish Atget as a central figure in modernism. Using the two collectors as a way into Atget's world, Barberie contrasts their viewpoints, tracing how Abbott could promote Atget as a "great `styleless' photographer who recorded the world around him with humility" while Levy praised him as a "proto-Surrealist." The additional section on photographic materials (written by Beth A. Price and Ken Sutherland) bolster's the book's air of definitiveness with its fascinating, if technical, details on printing, binders, etc. In short, this book makes an elegant shelf mate for the Taschen volume that is beloved by Francophiles around the world. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved