Jaques Henri Lartigue

24 June - 05 September 2004

The was the first-ever major British showing of the work of the French master photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894-1986).

From the early age of 12, Lartigue obsessively photographed his family and friends, building up an extraordinary archive of photo albums over 80 years, a unique and compelling record of an epoch.

French high society at play, fashionable beauties, the Cote d’Azur, motor racing exploits and early experiments in flight: Lartigue captured them all with breathtaking ease and vitality, revealing himself as an innocent modernist, an innate genius with the camera. He found international fame only in the 1960s; his best-known images are now icons of 20th century photographic history. The exhibition included hundreds of his best photographs, and centred on his 126 large photo albums, made between 1902 and 1968.

The exhibition was organised by the Centre Pompidou in collaboration with the Donation Jacques Henri Lartigue.