Jacques Lartigue became a photographer as a boy so small he stood on a stool to operate his camera. He documented the world around him with exuberance. Most of his shots were candid, capturing a nanosecond of his subjects in mid-action. He obsessively recorded moments of family fun, beauty, speed, invention and unbridled joy. He pioneered techniques, producing images that remain groundbreaking to this day.
Lartigue (1894 – 1986) was 69 years old when the world took notice of his robust body of work. Yes, he was a latecomer to fame. But he beat his contemporary, Grandma Moses (1860-1961) who started painting seriously well into her 70s and was nearly 90 before she was well known.
A Boy And His Cameras
Jacques Lartigue was born into a prosperous family in Courbevoie, near Paris, France. The year was 1894, just a few years after Nellie Bly visited Jules Verne in 1889.
When Lartigue was seven, he started his life-long passion for photography with a large-plate camera he operated by standing on a stool. The next year, his father gave him a handheld Brownie No. 2 camera from Kodak.
As promised, the handheld camera freed Henri Latrigue to capture moments in time and motion from the world around him.
According to Donation, the official holder of the works of Jacques Lartigue:
“From then on, Jacques recorded incessantly the world of his childhood, from automobile outings and family holidays to inventions by his older brother Maurice (nicknamed Zissou).” (Donation Henri Lartigue)
Jacques Henri and his brother were dedicated fans of sports, cars, and new forms of flight.
“ Jacques used his camera to document them all. As he grew up, he continued to frequent sporting events, participating in and recording such elite leisure activities as skiing, skating, tennis or golf.” (DonationJacquesLartigue.)
He Developed During A Golden Age Of Photography
Jacques Lartigue was born at a great time in photography. The first cameras were miraculous technological developments, but with slow shutter speeds, they could not capture a crisp shot of a subject in motion. In 1826 or 1827, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce took the first known photograph. Titled View from the Window at Le Gras, it’s a grey-hued pewter plate with the blurred shadow-shapes of tree lines and buildings.
Fast forward to Lartigue’s time when innovations occurred routinely. Among them:
-By 1893, the Eastman Kodak Company developed a simple, reliable camera. Female photographers were at the center of their ad campaigns for decades. They were portrayed as adventurous world travelers who could launch new businesses and document special moments for their families.(Read about Kodak Girls making big waves here.)
-Jump Photography evolved over decades as scientists and artists alike dreamed of capturing subjects in mid-motion. Like so many forms of technology through the Industrial Era, progress was the result of contributions from many great minds and more than a few failed experiments. (Read about Jump Photography here.)
-Alice Austen pioneered photojournalism decades before the term was coined. Lugging a camera that was anything but portable, she was among the first female photographers to work outside of a studio. Polite women of her day did not travel through cities unescorted. Through approximately 8,000 photographs she documented rapidly changing times as history unfolded before her. (Read about Alice Austen here.)
-A Vermont farmer known as Snowflake Man became the first person to photograph a snowflake on January 18, 1885. (Read about Snowflake Man here.)
He Expanded His Artistic Life
In addition to photography, Jacques Lartigue kept a journal throughout his life. In 1915, he attended the Julian Academy in Paris where he began drawing and painting.
Expanding his usual black and white photography, Lartigue also experimented with the Autochrome color process during these years.
Finally, The World Found Him
When his family fortune declined in the early 1930s, Jacques Lartigue lived a simpler life from the sale of his paintings and some photography.
In 1962 he and his third wife were in New York where they were introduced to John Szarkowski, the director of photography for the Museum of Modern Art. In 1963 MOMA exhibited his work to great acclaim.
Jacques Lartigue continued to photograph his world well into his 90s.
He Donated His Life’s Work
In 1979, Lartigue donated his entire body of photographs to the French government. The “Donation Jacques Henri Lartigue” is the sole administrator of property rights to protect Lartigue’s work throughout the world.
His scanned work in 126 photographic albums can be viewed at here.
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