Jacques Henri Lartigue: Life, Work and the 1963 MoMA Show

Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894–1986) was a French photographer, painter and diarist who began photographing as a child and became widely known only in 1963, when the Museum of Modern Art in New York gave him his first solo museum exhibition at the age of 69.¹ First, this article sets out what the primary sources confirm, where they disagree, and which popular claims we left out.

Jacques Henri Lartigue at a Glance

Item	What the sources say
Born	13 June 1894, Courbevoie, near Paris
Died	12 September 1986, Nice, aged 92
First MoMA show	Photographs by Lartigue, 1 July to 3 November 1963; 46 works dated 1905–1922, selected by John Szarkowski
Magazine feature	Life, 29 November 1963, pages 65–73
Book	Diary of a Century, Viking Press, New York, 1970; edited by Richard Avedon, designed by Bea Feitler
Donation	Works donated to the French state in 1979, according to the Ministry of Culture and the Donation
Retrospectives	Paris, 1975; Bonjour Monsieur Lartigue, Grand Palais, Paris, 1980

Early Life of Jacques Henri Lartigue and His First Camera

First, the Donation Lartigue says his father, Henri Lartigue, introduced him to photography in 1900 and gave him his first camera in 1902, when he was eight.² At first, he photographed car trips, family holidays and the inventions of his older brother Maurice, nicknamed Zissou.

Why the first photograph of Jacques Henri Lartigue is dated differently

However, the Donation’s own chronology places the first photographs in 1903, taken with his father’s camera, and says that this is when his diary began. Yet the same chronology also mentions the eightieth anniversary of his first photograph in 1902.³ As a result, we give both years and do not choose between them.

Jacques Henri Lartigue’s cameras and early publication

According to the chronology, by 1905 his cameras were lighter and easier to handle, so he could photograph moving subjects. He also used a stereoscopic camera, learned multiple exposures and photographed “ghosts”. In 1912, one of his photographs appeared on the cover of the newspaper La Vie au grand air.⁴

Jacques Henri Lartigue as Painter, Diarist and Colour Photographer

Lartigue also painted. The Donation says he took up drawing and painting in 1915, briefly attended the Julian Academy, and exhibited as a painter from 1922 in Paris and the south of France.⁵ In addition, he kept a diary for life.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture says he made colour photographs from 1912, using stereo-autochromes and slides in several formats.⁶ The chronology adds that he made his finest autochrome plates in 1921 in the park of the Château de la Garoupe.

How Jacques Henri Lartigue Reached MoMA in 1963

In 1962, Lartigue and his wife Florette stopped in New York, where they met Charles Rado, founder of the Rapho agency. Rado then introduced him to John Szarkowski, the newly appointed director of MoMA’s photography department.⁷

What MoMA says it showed of Jacques Henri Lartigue

MoMA’s schedule of exhibitions dated 1 July 1963 lists Photographs by Lartigue: 46 “recently re-discovered” works from 1905 to 1922, selected by Szarkowski.⁸ In particular, the release names the subjects: summer scenes in Paris, nearby race tracks, resorts, early automobiles and aeronautics, and fashionable pastimes of the First World War period.

The Life feature on Jacques Henri Lartigue

Next came Life. A scholarly article by Marianne Le Galliard gives the reference as “The world leaps into an age of innovation”, 29 November 1963, pages 65–73. She adds that the MoMA show, first planned for December 1962, was postponed to coincide with that article.⁹ In addition, the Donation says the spread appeared in an issue on John F. Kennedy’s death.

Richard Avedon and Jacques Henri Lartigue’s Diary of a Century

Le Galliard reports that Richard Avedon wrote to Lartigue on 15 March 1963, saying that Szarkowski had shown him the photographs.¹⁰ Later, in 1966, Lartigue travelled again to New York and befriended Avedon and the photographer Hiro.

Then, in 1970, Viking Press published Diary of a Century, with layout by Avedon and Bea Feitler. Le Galliard calls it the first monograph to cover his whole oeuvre, spanning almost sixty years.¹¹

For another Szarkowski project of the decade, see our article on New Documents (1967).

The Jacques Henri Lartigue Donation and Later Recognition

In France, a retrospective followed in 1975 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, according to the Donation’s biography, and its chronology names the show Lartigue 8×80 at the Pavillon de Marsan.¹² Subsequently, in 1979, he signed a deed donating his photographic work to the state. The Ministry of Culture says it was the first of three deeds.

Moreover, the biography calls him the first living French photographer to do so. Finally, in 1980, the exhibition Bonjour Monsieur Lartigue was shown at the Grand Palais in Paris.

What the Donation contains

The Ministry lists 135 albums with more than 40,000 prints, 120,000 negatives and slides, and nine cameras. However, another section of the same document cites 126 albums, and the Donation’s biography speaks of more than 100,000 photographs.¹³ In practice, the Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine is the custodian, and the Association des Amis de Jacques-Henri Lartigue manages the work.

Myths About Jacques Henri Lartigue

“Szarkowski discovered Lartigue”

However, this is too simple. Le Galliard notes that scholars credit Szarkowski with having “invented” Lartigue as an artist, following Kevin Moore’s book, but she ranks Avedon’s 1970 book as the decisive step.¹⁴ Moreover, his images had already reached print: La Vie au grand air in 1912 and the illustrated press in the 1950s.

“Unknown until 1963”

Likewise, the Donation’s biography says he was unknown as a photographer until 1963, yet it also says he began to receive some recognition in the early 1950s. Le Galliard adds that a few of the pictures had been shown in 1955 in a colour-photography group exhibition at the Galerie d’Orsay in Paris.

Claims we did not repeat

First, we found no primary source explaining the leaning cars in his racing pictures through a focal-plane shutter, so we do not state it as fact. Second, we found no source for a link between Lartigue and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Third, we did not repeat any exact day for the donation deed, because the Ministry text we read gives none.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was Jacques Henri Lartigue born and when did he die?

He was born on 13 June 1894 in Courbevoie and died on 12 September 1986 in Nice.

When did Jacques Henri Lartigue get his first camera?

The Donation’s biography says 1902, at age eight. However, its chronology dates his first photographs to 1903, so the sources differ by a year.

What was Jacques Henri Lartigue’s first major exhibition?

It was Photographs by Lartigue at MoMA, from 1 July to 3 November 1963. However, some pictures had appeared in a group show in 1955.

Where can I see his photographs?

We do not reproduce them here, because we found no clear licence for reuse. Instead, see the MoMA exhibition page and the site of the Donation Lartigue.

Further Reading

• Donation Lartigue, biography and chronology.
• MoMA, Photographs by Lartigue (1963) and its press release.
• French Ministry of Culture, document on the Donation Lartigue.
• Marianne Le Galliard, “In the spirit of the age”, Études photographiques 32 (2015).
• Kevin Moore, Jacques Henri Lartigue: The Invention of an Artist, Princeton University Press, 2004.
• Richard Avedon, Bea Feitler and Jacques Henri Lartigue, Diary of a Century, New York: Viking Press, 1970.

Sources and Limits for Jacques Henri Lartigue

Sources used

First, biographical facts come from the Donation Lartigue and the French Ministry of Culture. Second, the 1963 exhibition comes from MoMA’s own pages. In addition, the Life reference and the Avedon letter come from one peer-reviewed article. Finally, the three images come from Wikimedia Commons, and none of them is a photograph by Lartigue.

Limits of what we could verify

First, we did not read Diary of a Century, the MoMA catalogue or the Life issue. Second, we read the MoMA release as a page image and the Ministry document through text extraction, so we may have missed details. Third, the Donation’s dates for the first photograph and its counts of the archive disagree with themselves. In addition, a Commons file credited to Lartigue carries a free licence, but we could not confirm that the rights holders granted it, so we did not use it. Finally, the Avedon letter’s date sits awkwardly with the show’s dates in the source article.

1. Dates and the 1963 exhibition: Donation Jacques Henri Lartigue, biography. Birth in Courbevoie on 13 June 1894: French Ministry of Culture document on the Donation.
2. Donation Lartigue, biography.
3. Donation Lartigue, chronology, entries for 1903 and 1982.
4. Donation Lartigue, chronology, entries for 1905 and 1912.
5. Donation Lartigue, biography; the chronology lists the Galerie Georges Petit in 1922.
6. French Ministry of Culture document on the Donation.
7. Donation Lartigue, biography; the chronology gives the same sequence.
8. MoMA press release no. 87, 1 July 1963 (we read the page image). Dates of the show: MoMA exhibition history, which also lists a 32-page catalogue titled The photographs of Jacques Henri Lartigue.
9. Marianne Le Galliard, “In the spirit of the age: the photographic work of Jacques Henri Lartigue, from creation to consecration (1966–1967)”, Études photographiques 32 (2015), note 1: OpenEdition. We did not see the Life issue itself.
10. Le Galliard, “In the spirit of the age”, note 5 (letter held by the Association des amis de Jacques Henri Lartigue). The article places the letter “following the MoMA exhibition”, but the show opened in July 1963; we cannot reconcile the two statements and rely on the letter’s date.
11. Le Galliard, “In the spirit of the age”; publication details also in the Donation chronology, which gives the French edition, Instants de ma vie, as 1973.
12. Biography and chronology, Donation Lartigue.
13. French Ministry of Culture document and Donation biography. The counts differ and we could not reconcile them.
14. Le Galliard, “In the spirit of the age”, introduction and note 3. Kevin Moore, Jacques Henri Lartigue: The Invention of an Artist, Princeton University Press, 2004; its existence is confirmed by a Choice review, doi:10.5860/choice.42-5069.