Childhood hobby yields photo record of the 20th century

It was a perfect present, Jacques Lartigue’s birthday dream come true. The camera that he received the day he turned 7 in 1902 proceeded to record the story of a century, almost until the day of his death in 1986. “Many, many things are going to ask me to have their pictures taken, and I will take them all,” he is reported to have promised.

Forty of Lartigue’s remarkable shots, most taken in his early youth, will be on exhibition at the Chazen Museum of Art beginning on Saturday, Oct. 22.

Described as being rarely seen without the beloved camera, Lartigue recorded the objects and people that interest most little boys: aviation and automotive machines, then in their infancy; fashionable ladies; sports figures; candid moments of family and friends.

Certainly he had the leisure, access to the latest technology and the fiscal wherewithal to pursue these interests in depth, as his father was one of France’s wealthiest men. The then-new “instantaneous photography” — taken with a camera quick enough to freeze motion and stop time — fascinated him particularly. Lartigue also experimented with double exposure, stereographic images and other new techniques of the time. His circle of friends included Man Ray, Sacha Guitry, Yvonne Printemps, Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and many more. As the cinema became more and more popular, Lartigue worked as a still photographer with such film directors as Jacques Feyder, Abel Gance, Robert Bresson, Francois Truffaut and Federico Fellini.

However, Lartigue saw himself as a painter and a reluctant photographer. He called his constant snapping “a mania that is a weakness,” and described his shots as “stupid” and “insignificant.”

Nevertheless, Lartigue resolved from the day he received that first camera to save, compose and catalogue his photographs. Anne Lambert, curator of education at Chazen, says that the artist’s enthusiasm for classification testifies to the value of systematically recording personal experiences.

“Students in the upper elementary grades through high school can see the value of keeping a diary or journal, combined with building a visual record or portfolio. These practices enhance verbal aptitudes, as well as visual, spatial, mechanical and interpersonal skills. Because young students often do not have a well-developed sense of history, keeping a photographic journal helps them gain a sense of the progression of events over time through their most accessible subject, themselves,” she says.

Lambert says that thanks to Lartigue’s meticulous cataloguing, college students, faculty and staff will have an unparalleled panorama of the last century.

“Photography curators, artists, scholars of the history of childhood, and social and cultural historians have been able to look at each period of Lartigue’s life and find them all equally accessible due to his documentary rigor,” she says.

Lambert adds that any viewer will come away from the exhibition with a renewed appreciation for the importance of childhood.

“The adult world often ignores the child’s view. Perhaps this exhibition will present 21st century viewers with a concrete reminder of the importance of play, and how interests begun in childhood can last a lifetime,” she says.

Lartigue visited the United States for the first time in 1962. John Szarkowski, curator of photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and an interdisciplinary artist in residence at UW–Madison in 2000, arranged an exhibition of Lartigue’s work. Late-life fame ensued, and until his death in 1986 he was busy answering commissions, one of which was for the official portrait of French President Vale’ry Giscard d’Estaing.

“Jacques Henri Lartigue: A Boy, A Camera, An Era” will be on view through Saturday, Dec. 31. A special preview reception of the exhibition will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 21, at the museum. For information about related educational events (Lambert says that with three weeks’ notice she can arrange tours of the exhibition in French) or other information, visit http://www.chazen.wisc.edu or call 263-2246.