FASHION PHOTOGRAPHERS: LARTIGUE

Jacques-Henri Lartigue (1894-1986) was born at Courbevoie, France, and he grew up in Paris.
His father, a businessman and passionate amateur photographer, gave him his first camera at the age of seven and started keeping what would become a lifelong diary. In 1904 he began making photographs and drawings of family games and childhood experiences, also capturing the beginnings of aviation and cars and the smart women of the Bois de Boulogne as well as society and sporting events.  In 1932, attracted by the cinema, Jacques-Henri Lartigue acted as assistant director on the film ‘Le Roi Pausole’ for which he also took the official photographs. His passion for movies saw him work as still photographer with Jacques Feyder, Abel Gance, Robert Bresson, François Truffaut and Federico Fellini. Jacques-Henri Lartigue became well known as an illustrator and designer during the years 1935-1950. Mr. Lartigue first became known to the American public through an exhibition of photographs organized by John Szarkowski in 1963 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York who saw Jacques-Henri Lartigue as “the precursor of all that is lively and interesting in the middle of the 20th century.”Worldwide fame came three years later with his first book, The Family Album, followed in 1970, by Diary of a Century, conceived by Richard Avedon. In 1975 he had his first French retrospective at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. For the rest of his life, Lartigue was busy answering commissions from fashion and decoration magazines.

Florette-Paris 1944

Florette-Paris 1943

Bibi- Cannes 1923

Renèe - Paris 1931

Zissou-1911