974
Nadar’s fi nal work as a photographer occurred in 1897
after his son failed to pay him his annuity: he opened a
portrait studio in Marseilles but sold it in 1899. In 1900
Nadar was honored with a retrospective exposition of
his work at the Exposition Universelle. The last decade
of his life found him in failing health, although he
survived both his younger brother Adrien and his wife
Ernestine. Upon Paul Nadar’s death in 1939, the Nadar
studio ceased to exist.
Nancy M. Shawcross
Biography
Born Gaspard-Félix Tournachon on 6 April 1820 in
Paris, Nadar was the fi rst child of printer/publisher
Victor Tournachon and Thérèse Maillet. Originally
educated in and around Paris, Nadar began but never
completed the study of medicine in Lyons, where his
father had relocated the family. In 1838 Nadar returned
to Paris on his own and adopted “Nadar” (sometimes
“Nadard”) as his pen name. In Paris in the 1840s,
Nadar allied himself with a band of vagabond artists
that Henri Mürger immortalized in Scènes de la vie
Bohème [Scenes from the Life of Bohemia]; among
them was Charles Baudelaire. Nadar’s fi rst career was
as a writer, but by 1846 he had embarked on a second
career as a caricaturist, culminating in his 1854 tour
de force, Panthéon Nadar (a revised version appeared
in 1858), a set of two enormous lithographs compris-
ing caricatures of noted Parisians. In 1854 Nadar also
married Ernestine-Constance Lefèvre and assisted his
brother Adrien by fi nancing photography lessons for
him with Gustave Le Gray and setting up a photographic
studio, fi rst for Adrien and then for himself. Though he
continued to do caricatures throughout the 1850s, by the
1860s Nadar was an established portrait photographer
in Paris, becoming a member of the Société française de
photographie in 1856, exhibiting in its Salon in 1859,
and pioneering a number of photographic techniques
and locations, such as the fi rst aerial photography and
artifi cial lighting in 1858, equestrian photography in
1861, and photographing the catacombs and sewers of
Paris in 1861–62 and 1864–65, respectively. In addition
to these careers Nadar was also an aeronaut and fi nanced
a hot-air balloon called le Géant [Giant]. Nadar retired
from photography in 1873, leaving his studio to his son
Paul (1856–1939) to run. During his retirement Nadar
continued to write and publish memoirs; he briefl y re-
emerged as a photographer in 1897 in Marseilles. Nadar
died in Paris on 20 March 1910, fourteen months after
the death of his wife.
See also: Le Gray, Gustave; Bertsch, Auguste-
Adolphe; Wet Collodion Negative; Lacan, Ernst;
Cartes-de-Visite; and Aerial Photography.
Further Reading
Baldwin, Gordon, and Judith Keller, Nadar—Warhol, Paris—New
York: Photography and Fame, Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty
Museum, 1999 (exhibition catalog).
Chevallier, Alix, and Jean Adhémar, Nadar, Paris: Bibliothèque
nationale, 1965 (exhibition catalog).
Gosling, Nigel, Nadar, New York: Knopf, 1976.
Hambourg, Maria Morris et al., Nadar, New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 1995 (exhibition catalog).
McCauley, Elizabeth Anne, Industrial Madness: Commercial
Photography in Paris, 1848–1871, New Haven: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1994.
Nadar, Quand j’étais photographe [When I Was a Photographer],
Paris: Seuil, 1994.
Nadar, Correspondance [Correspondence], edited by André
Rouillé, Nîmes: J. Chambon, 1998.
Nadar: les années créatrices: 1854–1860 [Nadar: The Creative
Years, 1854–1860], Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux,
1994 (exhibition catalog).
Néagu, Philippe, and Jean-Jacques Poullet-Allamagny, Le Pari-
sian souterrain de Félix Nadar, 1861, Paris: Caisse nationale
des monuments historiques et des sites, 1982 (exhibition
catalog).
Prinet, Jean, and Antoinette Dilasser, Nadar, Paris: A. Colin,
1966.NADAR, PAUL (1856–1939)
French photographer, entrepreneur, and son of
Nadar
Paul Nadar was born February 8, 1856, in Paris, the only
son of Ernestine and Félix Tournachon, better known
as Nadar. Considered one of the premier portraitists of
his time, Félix Nadar was celebrated for his Panthéon
Nadar, caricatures of mid-to late 19th century Parisian
cultural players, and his informal photographic portraits
of these artists, writers, and performers.
Nadar’s collodion-on-glass portraits were renown
for their intimacy and details. As opposed to the work
of contemporaries such as Disdéri, Nadar used minimal
props. In lieu of elaborate backdrops and costumes, his
subjects were shown in everyday clothing, either in fron-
tal or three-quarter angle views. Mirrors, combined with
natural and artifi cial lights, created dramatic shadows
and framed his subjects in light, an effect intended to
mirror their personal aura. Amongst the most intimate
of Nadar’s works were his photographs of Paul. In a
celebrated work of 1856, the infant Paul is shown be-
ing fed by his wet nurse. Two years later, Paul is shown
resting against the body of Madame Lefranc in a work
that recalls late Italian Renaissance and Baroque images
of the Madonna and Child.
By 1862, Nadar lost interest in studio photography,
yet was forced to accept commissions from politicians
and prosperous bourgeoisie. As a result, his celebrated
aesthetic was often compromised as he, like most studio
photographers, focused on lucrative carte-de-visites.