Rue des Lombards — Jane Evelyn Atwood, ATELIER EXB

In late 1975, newly arrived in Paris at the age of 28, Jane Evelyn Atwood began photographing the women working in a single building on the Rue des Lombards. What began as a portrait of one prostitute became an extended immersion into a closed world—a place of intimacy, performance, resilience, and coded femininity. Atwood’s camera enters this space not as voyeur but as witness. Her signature style—immersive, patient, and quietly intense—is already present here in full form. The resulting images are black-and-white, close-up, unflinching, but always respectful. Hairbrushes, mirrors, wigs, cigarettes, laughter: this is not a document of sex, but of waiting, dressing, talking, surviving. Published decades later by Éditions Xavier Barral in a tall, slipcased hardcover, Rue des Lombards brings together 156 pages of Atwood’s earliest work, which would go on to define her trajectory as one of the most rigorous and empathetic photojournalists of her generation. A foundational book, long in the shadows, finally given the form it deserves.

Technical Sheet
Title: Rue des Lombards
Artist / Author: Jane Evelyn Atwood
Date: 2011
Technique / Printing Method: Offset
Medium / Materials: Hardcover in slipcase
Dimensions (cm): 22 × 33
Language: English
Pages: 156
Publisher / Editor: Éditions Xavier Barral
Condition: Very good