Background
Among Atget's early customers were such now-famous artists as van Gogh and Picasso, who used his photographs as inspirations for their own work. Recognition was slow in coming, however, and Atget spent his last 20 years in dire poverty. Berenice Abbott, the noted American photographer, met Atget during his final years and on his death in Paris on Aug. 4, 1927, purchased several thousand original negatives from his landlord. She thus saved from extinction some of the finest images in the history of photography.
