in remarkably elaborate clothing: a long fur jacket
with silk tassels; hats shaped like dirigibles, fes-
tooned with feathers; piles of ermine wrapped
around shoulders and hands, trailing down over a
velvet embroidered and fur-trimmed skirt; lace col-
lars, sleeves, and bodices. While some of the women
look at the camera, many turn their heads trying to
avoid the camera’s gaze. Indeed several of the
women appear unaware that Lartigue photographs
them. Some are photographed from behind, lending
the images a voyeuristic quality. When the women
do realize they are being photographed, the expres-
sions on their faces range from suspicion and dis-
may to coy haughtiness. In 1910, the 16-year-old
Lartigue wrote in his diary about taking photo-
graphs of Paris’s fashionable women:
She: the well-dressed, fashionable, eccentric, elegant,
ridiculous, or beautiful woman I’m waiting for. You can
spot her from far away, in the midst of all the other
people, just as you can immediately spot a golden phea-
sant when it’s surrounded by chickens...My camera
makes such a noise that the lady jumps...almost as
much as I do. That doesn’t matter, except when she is in
the company of a big man who is furious and starts to
scold me as if I were a naughty child. That really makes
me very angry, but I try to smile. The pleasure of having
taken another photograph makes up for everything! The
gentleman I will forget. The picture I will keep.
(Diary,Paris,29May1911,quotedinDiaryofa Century)
The hunting references are clear. For Lartigue,
photographing was a kind of sport that enabled
him to capture a moment or a person and preserve
it for himself.
Photographing women was something Lartigue
continued to do for the rest of his life. In 1919, he
married Madeleine (Bibi) Messager, the daughter
of composer and Ope ́ra director Andre ́Messager.
On their honeymoon, Lartigue made some of his
most intimate images. In one photograph,Honey-
moon at the Hoˆtel des Alpes, Bibi and Me in the
Mirror’s Reflection, Chamonix, January 1920, the
camera looks through an open door at Bibi sitting
in the tub. To the left of the door, Lartigue’s image
is reflected in a mirror above an armoire. At the
right of the frame the couple’s clothes hang on a
clothes stand and newspapers are scattered across a
table. It is a domestic scene that is both happy and
poignant, for Lartigue is only present in his reflec-
tion. This is a telling photograph of a man who
described himself as distant and self-absorbed. Lar-
tigue photographed all three of his wives as well as
actresses, friends, models, and lovers.
Despite his passion for photography, Lartigue
earned his living as painter. By 1922, he was exhibit-
ing his paintings at the Galerie Georges Petit in
Paris, and by the mid-1930s he was well known as
an artist. He also worked as a consultant on several
films and as an interior decorator. Lartigue’s profile
in the art world along with his privileged status as a
member of a bourgeois family meant that he was
able to photograph several famous artists and per-
formers. In the 1920s he made a series of photo-
graphs of women, including performers Josephine
Baker and Gaby Basset, entitled Portraits with
Cigarettes. He was friends with the artist Van Don-
gen and photographed him many times over the
years. He photographed Picasso in his studio in- These images, however, are not typical por-
traits. One photograph of Picasso, for example,
shows the artist from behind, dressed only in a pair
of shorts, closing the door to his studio in Cannes. It
is not a heroic portrait. Two pages from one of
Lartigue’s albums from 1955 show the hands of
both Picasso and of Jean Cocteau. Picasso wears
the same shorts as in the picture of his studio, but
here we see only the top of his leg, the bottom of his
shorts and one hand resting prone against his leg. By
contrast, the photograph of Cocteau shows the torso
of a man in a suit, his hand animated, gesturing,
while another hand in movement, belonging perhaps
to the photographer, obscures most of his face.
After Szarkowski ‘‘discovered’’ Lartigue, he be-
came known as a photographer. That same year his
photographs were featured in an issue ofLifemaga-
zine and eight years later, in 1970, Richard Avedon
edited a book entitledDiary of a Centurythat pre-
sented many of Lartigue’s photographs along with
corresponding diary entries. It was only at this late
stage in his life, after photographing daily from the
age of six, that Lartigue worked as a photographer.
He worked on several magazine commissions and,
in 1974, Vale ́ry Giscard d’Estaing, president of
France, asked Lartigue to take his official photo-
graph. When Lartigue replied that he was not an
official photographer, d’Estaing stated that was
why he wanted Lartigue to take his portrait.
When Lartigue was in his 80s, he donated his
photographic collection—his 130 albums, all his
negatives, cameras, and diaries—to the nation of
France.Sincethen,theDonationJacquesHenriLar-
tiguehasmountedmanytravelingexhibitions,which
have made his photographs even more popular.
While the popularity is due in part to the subject
matter and the photographs’ status as records of
early twentieth century life, it also reflects Lartigue’s
uncanny ability to capture an image at the best pos-
sible moment and to seemingly preserve it forever.
LindaM. Steer
LARTIGUE, JACQUES HENRI