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Art Art & Books

Class Act

EUGENE ATGET AND BERENICE ABBOTT on view at the Ryerson Gallery (80 Spadina) through May 4. 416-703-2235. Rating: NNNN


david harris, who worked onthe AGO’s current Atget show, assigned a parallel project to the students in his curation and preservation course at Ryerson’s School of Image Arts. The result is Abbott After Atget, a museum-quality show that draws on Ryerson’s own photographic archives and works from a private collection to demonstrate the impact of Atget’s art on the mid-century American great.

Abbott After Atget includes five of Atget’s vintage albumen silver prints 20 prints made by Abbott from Atget’s glass negatives eight images of New York City shot by Abbott between 1935 and 1939, when she was funded by the famous Depression-era Federal Arts Project three copies of the book on Atget that Abbott published in 1930, with the 97 plates that put Atget on the international map and an Abbott portrait of Atget (there are two of these in the AGO show).

The transformation — everything from the informative wall texts to the burgundy-painted walls — of this unpretentious student gallery is impressive, and the selection of works on view does a superb job of proving the show’s thesis.

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