Artist: Jacques Henri Lartigue

Admission
From Free - £15.95
Booking

‘Colour is the best way to express the charm and poetry of life.’

French painter, writer, and photographer, Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894-1986) is best known for his black and white photographs of society at the turn of the century Parisian Belle Époque. He also famously documented innovations including car racing and aviation, the floating world of the mid-century French Riviera, and trips to the United States at the end of his life. His work had late recognition, with a solo exhibition in 1963 at MoMA, New York. At that time, Lartigue was regarded as a pioneer of the instantaneous in photography, which would give rise to the genre known as street photography.

This is the first UK public exhibition of Lartigue’s work for over 10 years. It focuses on an exceptional and little-known aspect of his work: until recently, the majority of his colour photographs had never been seen, although they represent nearly 40% of the over 100,000 images conserved by the Donation JH Lartigue. The exhibition features more than 150 items including early stereoscopic images producing three-dimensional effects, vintage prints, unique works on paper, archival documents, lightboxes and projections. It also showcases Lartigue’s career from drawings made as a child in the 1900s to the fashion world of the 1960s and late abstractions of the 1980s.

Exhibition organized in collaboration with the Association des Amis de Jacques Henri Lartigue, Ministère de la Culture, France and diChroma photography.