LARTIGUE, Jacques Henri

About French photographer, Jacques-Henri LARTIQUE (1894-1986)

Jacques-Henri LARTIGUE was a French photographer and painter who was discovered only in the 1960s. His photographs are characterized by great vividness thanks to his unconcern as an amateur photographer. He was among the first to realize snapshots. His great fascination was with car races such as the Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France (ACF). Here, in 1912, he succeeded in taking a photo that has since become a metaphor for the speed of the technical age. Quite obviously, he pulled the camera along as the race car whizzed by. The elliptical deformation of the rear wheels is explained by the horizontal focal plane shutter. He paid no attention to the image for a long time until he met John Szarkowski, then director of the Museum of Modern Art, in 1963. At an impromptu exhibition, the photo was published for the first time. It also appeared in Life magazine as part of a portfolio. Since the same issue also reported on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the magazine sold like hot cakes.

Photo books on the photographic work of Jaques-Henri LARTIGUE (a selection)

• 'The photographs of Jacques Henri Lartigue' (1963); 'Boyhood photos. The Family Album of a Gilded Age' (1966); 'Diary of a Century/Phototagebuch unseres Jahrhunderts' (1970, 1971, 1973); 'Portfolio' (1972); 'Jacques Henri Lartigue et les autos' (1974); 'Lartigue 8 x 80' (1975); 'Jacques-Henri Lartigue' (1976, 1978); 'Mon livre de photographie' (1977); 'Bonjour Monsieur Lartigue' (1980, 1986); 'Les Femmes aux Cigarettes' (1980); 'Autochrome. Frühe Farbphotos 1912-1927' (1980, 1981); 'Photographs 1970-1982' (1983); 'Le Passé Composé. Les 6 X 13' (1984); 'Les Femmes' (1984); 'Album' (1986); 'Le bonheur du jour. 1902-1936' (1987); 'Le troisième œil' (1988); 'Flights of Fancy. 1904-1922' (1989); 'Rivages' (1990); 'La traversée du siècle' (1993); 'Boy With a Camera' (1994); 'La Côte d'Azur' (1997); 'L'Été' (1998); 'Jacques Henri Lartigue. 1894-1986' (1998); 'Jacques Henri Lartigue au Pays Basque' (2002); 'Lartigue en hiver' (2002); 'A Life's Diary' (2003); 'Carnets d’été à Trouville-Deauville' (2003); 'The Invention of an Artist' (2004); 'Album of a Century' (2004, 2012); 'A Sporting Life' (2013); 'Ueda Shoji & Jacques Henri Lartigue. Play with photography' (2013); 'La vie en couleur/Life in Color/Das Leben ist bunt' (2016); 'Jacques Henri Lartigue' (2019); 'The Invention of Happiness. Photographs' (2020); 'The Boy and the Belle Époque' (2020)

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