EUGÈNE ATGET (1857 1927) Nymphéa

Sale 2474 - Lot 23

Price Realized: $ 18,750

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000

EUGÈNE ATGET (1857-1927)
Nymphéa. Albumen print, the image measuring 7 1/8x8 1/2 inches (18.1x21.6 cm.), with Atget's title and negative number 700, in pencil, and the MoMA Dupe notation, also in pencil, on verso. Circa 1910

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Additional Details

From the Collection of Berenice Abbott / Julien Levy, 1968; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2002; to the Collection of Wagner Thielens.

Berenice Abbott came to know Atget in Paris while she was working as Man Ray's studio assistant in the mid-1920s. The aesthetic influence Atget had on Abbott after their providential meeting can be seen in her own monumental city project, Changing New York, and indeed their crossed paths influenced the trajectory of photography for many decades to come.

Julien Levy, one of the most influential art dealers of the twentieth century, operated a gallery in New York from 1931-49, which became a place of heady influence, introducing Surrealism, the avant-garde, photography, and experimental film to New York City.

Abbott and Levy were introduced in Paris, and through Abbott, Levy purchased a vast archive of Atget's work after his death in 1927. In 1930 Abbott and Levy put together an exhibition of Atget's work at the Weyhe Gallery, but their incredible foresight in recognizing Atget's brilliance went, at the time, little noticed.

MoMA eventually acquired 5000 of Atget's prints from Abbott in 1968. This group, known as the Abbott-Levy Collection, included 2000 duplicate and triplicates, 1000 of which were later sold at auction (in 2002). These prints are annotated (apparently in dealer David Tunick's hand).