Jacques Henri Lartigue was a French photographer and painter known for his spontaneous and joyful photographs of automobile races, planes, and female Parisian fashion models. Born into a wealthy family in Courbevoie, he began taking photographs at the age of seven. He was an early adopter of the Kodak Brownie camera for snapshots and captured significant events including the Coupe Gordon Bennett and the French Grand Prix. While he sold some work to sporting magazines like La Vie au Grand Air, he spent much of his middle age focusing on painting as his primary source of income. His boyhood photographs were 'discovered' in 1963 by Charles Rado, leading to a major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and subsequent fame worldwide. He was commissioned by President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing for an official portrait in 1974 and received his first French retrospective at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs that same year.[1,2,3,4,5]
Jacques Henri Lartigue - Photographer1998 · Thames and Hudson · book · EnglishISBN 0500542260Subject of the book; Lartigue is the primary subject/creator whose work is featured.
Exhibitions
1963Jacques Henri LartigueMuseum of Modern Art, New York Citysolo
1994Jacques Henri Lartigue, l'amateur de rêvegroup
Awards
1984Cultural Award from the German Society for Photography (DGPh)German Society for Photography
