The Reaper, Somme

Artist Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)

Publisher Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)

CultureFrench

Datebefore 1900

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsOverall, Image: 6 1/4 × 8 5/8 in. (15.9 × 21.9 cm)
Overall, Support: 9 3/4 × 10 in. (24.8 × 25.4 cm)
Overall, Mat: 16 × 20 1/8 in. (40.6 × 51.1 cm)

Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

Object number71.2207.24

Not on view

DescriptionThis is a photograph depicting two men working in a field on a hillside. It was printed by Berenice Abbott.

Label TextEugène Atget French, 1857–1927 top Faucheurs, Somme (Reapers, Somme), before 1900 Albumen print (photograph) Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. by exchange 2002.5.5 bottom Faucheurs, Somme (Reapers, Somme), before 1900 Gelatin silver print (photograph), printed by Berenice Abbott (American, 1898–1991) after 1956 Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.2207.24 When Eugène Atget made this photograph of rural farmers, he was documenting a lifestyle that was fading from view. During a period of rapid modernization in Paris, Atget ignored the city’s new boulevards and grand architecture. Instead he focused on the details of Paris’s aging neighborhoods and everyday life in the nearby countryside. Atget’s work was largely overlooked until the end of his life, when a group of Surrealists published his images, celebrating their unconventional style. The young American artist Berenice Abbott befriended the senior photographer, and upon his death she brought thousands of his glass plate negatives to the United States. In the 1950s, Abbott began reprinting Atget’s work, but used modern photographic materials with noticeably different results. Unlike Atget’s warm-toned originals, Abbott’s late prints show the crisp contrast then in style. Exhibition History"Photographs Take Time: Pictures from the Chrysler Collection," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, April 6 - August 26, 2018.Published ReferencesClark Worswick, _Berenice Abbott & Eugéne Atget_ (Santa Fe: Arena Editions, 2002), pl.96. ISBN: 1-892041-63-4 A print of this photograph John Szarkowski and Maria Morris Hambourg, _The Work Of Atget, Volume I: Old France_ (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1981), 159, fig. 8. ISBN: 0-87070-204-1 A print of this photograph