Book Review: Books on Books 1: Eugene Atget: Photographe de Paris (1930), Errata Editions, NY, 2008

This volume represents a poorly executed great idea:  reproductions of classic rare photography books.  In this case we have the first monograph of Eugene Atget, published internationally in 1930 in copies of 1000 each in France, Germany and America.  One of these is currently available from a rare book dealer on Amazon for USD500.  The Errata reproduction is USD30.

None of the photos in this collection, so far as I know, are rare, and are most probably all found in the Gingko edition.  What makes this book particularly interesting is that it is essentially a collection of photographs of photographs, a document of a document.  A few of the essay pages appear to have been left out, but everything else is included here, but unfortunately in reduced scale.


The original book wasn’t much bigger than the new one - 27.3 x 21.6 cm  against  24.3 x 18.2 - the difference of 3cm on either side.  But in the old the plates were printed full-page.  In the new, 78 of 96 plates are printed half size, two to a page, about 7.5 x 6cm each.   If you’re looking at a storefront or a cityscape, the detail is reduced to insignificant.  More disappointing still, the editors include each of the blank facing pages from the original, space that could have been used to print the images full page and made for a much better book.

The Errata edition does provide two bonuses not found in the original:  an English translation of the essay by French novelist Pierre Mac Orlan.  The original English edition featured the essay in French, a wordy piece that mentions Atget by name only in the last quarter and which is otherwise occupied with the state of (then) modern art and photography.  The new essay for the Errata version by David Campany is of much more interest, covering the early history of Atget’s popularity and the background to the publication of the original volume of which this a copy. He finds Atget’s work representative of the tension in photography between artwork and document.  Presenting Atget’s work in museums or books (in particular books entitled ‘Atget’) is clearly beyond the bounds of the photographer's intention, which was the production of documents.  But when we attend to documents, Campany argues, we have the potential to discover an added layer of meaning, to discover an aesthetic.  Through our gaze we transform.  “In this way art allegorizes documents....”

If you are interested in the essay, it can now be read on Campany’s website here, which means there is little reason to purchase the Errata edition.

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