Jacques Henri Lartigue

Jacques Henri Lartigue was a French photographer and painter. Lartigue was born to a wealthy family and started taking photographs when he was seven. He photographed friends and family at play.

He also photographed sporting events, the French Grand Prix, the French Open tennis championships and even the early flights of aviation pioneers.

Latrigue worked with many different photography formats, including: stereoscopes, glass plates, autochromes, and film.

For most of his life the source of his income and living came from his paintings. All the while, he continued taking photographs and maintained written journals about them.

It wasn’t until the age of 69 that his boyhood photographs were 'discovered' by Charles Rado. Rado introduced Lartigue to John Szarkowski, the highly influential curator of the Museum of Modern Art. It was Szarkowski who arranged an exhibition of his work at the museum. In 1963, his photographs were published in Life magazine.