Parc de Saint-Cloud
Eugène Atget
French, 1857–1927
1919-21
A gelatin silver printing-out-paper photograph in which Eugène Atget quietly documents a corner of Parc de Saint-Cloud—weathered picnic tables arranged around bare tree trunks—to preserve the everyday architecture and atmosphere of Parisian public life.
What strikes you is the towering, dark trunks like columns framing empty wooden tables and benches, their tangled winter branches and soft, even light creating a hushed, almost uncanny stillness.
Atget's patient, documentary eye helped establish modern photography’s role as both archive and poet, turning ordinary urban details into influential studies of place and memory that inspired the Surrealists and later documentary photographers.
Medium
Gelatin silver printing-out-paper print
Dimensions
Approx. 8 9/16 × 7 1/16" (21.8 × 18 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Abbott-Levy Collection. Acquired through the generosity of Shirley C. Burden, and Family of Man Fund
Accession
1.1969.237
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
