Old Paris and Changing New York: Photographs by Eugene Atget and Berenice Abbott
by: Kevin Moore

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 156 pages, no dj issued. An insightful new look at two renowned photographers, their interconnected legacies, and the vital documents of urban transformation that they created. In this comprehensive study, Kevin Moore examines the relationship between Eugene Atget (1857-1927) and Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) and the nuances of their individual photographic projects. Abbott and Atget met in Man Ray's Paris studio in the early 1920s. Atget, then in his sixties, was obsessively recording the streets, gardens, and courtyards of the 19th-century city--old Paris--as modernization transformed it. Abbott acquired much of Atget's work after his death and was a tireless advocate for its value. She later relocated to New York and emulated Atget in her systematic documentation of that city, culminating in the publication of the project Changing New York.