Jacques Henri Lartigue

THE AUTOCHROMES OF J. H. LARTIGUE, 1912-1927 New York, Viking Press: 1980 779.092 LAR

In a century that produced so much that was ugly, pessimistic and brutal, it is easy to dismiss the work of Jacques Henri Lartigue. His photographs capture a world of glamorous automobile racers, stylish Parisiennes, and pastoral scenes bathed in eternal sunshine. It was Lartigue's good fortune to be born into a prosperous family at a time of stability as La Belle Epoque seemed. As it would turn out, Lartigue's work is the most inclusive visual record of an era that was dealt a death blow by World War I. And it was his boundless curiosity, love of experiment and of beauty that made these pictures possible.

Born in Courbevoie in 1894, the boy Jacques began taking pictures with his father's camera at age six, no small undertaking at a time when the equipment was bulky and unreliable. Like his contemporary, Laure Albin-Guillot, Jacques drew sketches of things before he photographed them. That, and and a detailed diary, enabled him in later life to organize thousands of images into several large albums that one day became a book (Diary of a Century, New York, Viking Press: 1978 FOL 779.44 LAR).

In 1907 the Lumiere Brothers were the first to market a color process that amateurs could use, though it was still cumbersome, requiring long exposures that made action shots difficult. Lartigue made his first autochromes at Rouzat in the Auvergne. Pictures included his brothers building an airplane, a friend trying out a bicycle and other diversions, along with lazy pastoral landscapes.

As it turned out, autochromes were unstable and the colors migrated or deteriorated over time. So the perfectionist Lartigue had to be persuaded by his French publisher Georges Herscher to publish an album of his color plates - at long last - in 1980. Explaining his reluctance to share his favorite pictures, the photographer said, "The black-and-white process can give very beautiful results, just as there are admirable black-and-white drawings, but color is the truth." You can see the color 'migration' in the photo below of Lartigue's wife Bibi on their balcony at Nice in 1926.

As for the charge of sentimentality, Lartigue defended his work this way: "If you are passionately fond of the beauties of nature, you shouldn't be afraid of being ridiculed for wanting to represent them" And further, "It's a matter of taste. I prefer to be happy and smiling than to be unhappy and whining."

In 1919 Lartigue married Bibi Messager and the young couple set up housekeeping at the Hotel Cap d'Antibes in Nice in1920, several years before it became the fashionable, and even iconic, destination that we are now familiar with. After he had done with autochromes, Lartigue would spend a quarter of a century shooting in black and white. His charmed life continued with a circle of friends that grew to include Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso, and assignments on film sets with Francois Truffaut and Federico Fellini. Wide renown arrived late when Lartigue's work was introduced to John Szarkowski, curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, who arranged an exhibition in 1963. His friend and fellow photographer Richard Avedon helped Lartigue assemble a retrospective volume of work Diary of a Century (1970). J. H. Lartigue died in 1986 in Nice, France.

Next year, in 2008, the 100th anniversary of the autochrome will be celebrated. An exhibition to honor the occasion runs from August 18, 2007 until July 27, 2008 at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth,Texas.

The autochromes of J. H. Lartigue pictured above are from the book, details as follows.

My friends and me in the Auvergne, 1913.

Airplane built by my brother Zissou, Rouzat, 1913.

Vichy, 1912.

Simone Roussel sittting on my two-wheeled "bob", Rouzat, 1913.

Bibi in Nice, 1921.

Hendaye, 1927.

Bibi at Cimez, Nice, 1927.