Powell and Atget: Street Views Across the Ocean

Parallel Visions in Lowell and Paris

Eugène Atget, Rue Galland, 1906–07

Courtesy of the Abbott-Levy Collection, MoMA

In the early 1900s, Eugène Atget roamed the streets of Paris choosing to create images that reflected the old medieval city, prior to Baron Haussmann’s controversial reimagining of Paris beginning in 1854. Atget’s work depicts shadowy streets, lonely figures; the alienated and the outcast. He was superior at stillness as the images attest. Beneath the stony architecture we often find haunting specters in various states of motion. He seemed to be the only soul to venture into such photographic contrasts and detached desolation. Atget claimed to make photographs that peddled to the inspiration of artists and surrealists, but as any photographer knows, it is quite unreasonable to separate the commercial image from the personal, or the photographer from his vision.

When I first saw Atget’s 1906 image of Rue Galande, I couldn’t help but consider the graphical similarities to Annie’s work on Bridge Street as we discussed in a recent post. Rue Galande was named for a family of medieval winemakers and may have originally been spelled “Garlande.” Yet the mirth and merriment implied by the street’s name are an ironic testament to Atget’s record of empty shops, cobblestones, as well as the blurred zest of city dwellers leaving us in their past. If we look at Annie’s 1928 photograph, Bridge St. at #86–88, we likewise see a view of the everyday from the perspective of an artist who was possibly influenced by surrealism. Atget’s ravine of Parisian tenements receives an American update from Annie in the form of a street view with overhanging fire escape and empty plate-glass storefronts. These panes reflect a corridor of light that oozes through the metal skeleton of the bridge. Atget’s work too, while not as high-key and bright as Annie’s, makes a subject of the road, drawing the viewer into its mysterious ultimate destination. Both images were taken from a similar viewpoint, from the perspective of street level. We can imagine ourselves as part of each scene yet simultaneously apart from it. We are clearly observers, never participants.

While at first viewing it seems there is only one foggy figure with its back to us on the Rue Galande, but a closer inspection reveals three, possibly four, vague silhouettes. In Annie’s picture we observe four individuals on the sidewalk, an undetermined number in the carriage, and one man hidden behind the lamp post his reflection in the window, dark and threatening. Still the amblers in both images are nearly anonymous, with the exception of the bespectacled man in the hat and coat on the left side of Annie’s image. We often see individuals akin to him in her work; individuals staring directly into the camera ominously lurking in the shadows casting judgement on the photographer’s vision. A ghostly presence, speechlessly assessing the working artist and her camera thinking, “What is she looking at?”

“Annie Powell, Bridge St. at #86–88, 1928

Courtesy of Lowell City Engineers Collection, UMass Lowell Center for Lowell History (CEC)

We know that Annie was devoutly religious and it’s tantalizing to look at the street, bridge, figures, the flow of light and imagine we are privy to some kind Christian or spiritualist allegory. Was Annie composing a message to be read by the contemporary viewer, nearly one-hundred years later, about her beliefs through her use of contrast, light, and subject matter? Of course, we have no way of confirming if she posed her subjects or chose to wait for the horse-drawn carriage to move towards the camera, as opposed to over the bridge and into the light. However, time and again, we see comparable elements in many of her images and can interpret them, if we choose, as portents warning of the consequences of a life devoid of faith. After all, there is an enduring legacy in art of just such symbolism and allegory. Suffice it to say, it is tempting to bring our own experiences and ideas to such images knowing that the truth may always remain elusive.

As with Atget, it is a fruitless exercise to presuppose what attracted Annie to this location. Was it work or personal preference, or a combination of the two? Many scholars look at Atget’s photographs as lessons in anticipation, in which the death of the street, the old city, and its culture are one fatal shutter click away. We do not know if Powell knew of Atget’s work although annual city reports show the Pollard Library was surprisingly rich with books on art and photography. We do know that Annie took a series of images of Bridge Street over the course of three days in January 1928, yet her intent remains enigmatic as does her process. On that date, the high in Lowell was 40 degrees and the low was 20 degrees.* The conditions were certainly challenging for managing a cumbersome view camera compounded by the fact that she would have had to wait for the optimum moment to take her shot, just like Atget. Much of art making is about waiting. Yet, anticipation in photography is essential.

While both artists produced work that even today is baffling, it nevertheless does not stop those of us atby Annie Powell from using our own imaginations in an attempt to translate Annie’s creative thoughts into possible theories. I, for one, would like to thank her for offering these questions to us. Like Atget, she never fails to keep us contemplating her motives and grasping at her artistry.

Eileen Powers is bAP curator, photographer, and a PhD student in art criticism and aesthetics.

*Temperatures were provided by Proprietors of Locks & Canals

Published in our newsletter 1/28/2025

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