August 13–November 6
Galleries 1 and 2

Overview: Eugène Atget, Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, André Kertész, Jacques Henri Lartigue--some of the greatest photographers of Paris--were hardly known when they began their most innovative work. Being obscure and thus unburdened by career expectations, they experimented using the city as subject matter and backdrop and developed an entirely new approach to photographic imagery.

These photographers, in focusing on Paris, followed in the footsteps of Charles Baudelaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the boulevard flâneurs of the late 19th century who made walking and observing city life a philosophical and aesthetic experience. The new generation's acceptance and celebration of the fluidity of the city's street life focused on time as a new element in making photographs. This became one of the chief virtues of their profession as photojournalists for new illustrated magazines that would eventually make them famous. Masterworks from these now-famous visionaries of photography form the core of a selection of 100 images of Paris from the 1850s to the 1950s drawn from the Art Institute's impressive collection. An exhibition catalogue is also available in the Museum Shop.

André Kertész. Shadows of the Eiffel Tower, 1929. Julien Levy Collection, Special Photography Acquisition Fund.