Lartigue: Album of a Century

by Alain Sayag (Editor), David Wharry (Translator), Jacques Henri Lartigue (Photographer)

A sweeping photographic retrospective of the artist's life and work presents the best of Lartigue's entire catalog of photography--from his first photograph to his last--accompanied by six essays covering various aspects of his art. 10,000 first printing.

Genres: Photography, Nonfiction

400 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2003

Reviews

[N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scrapbooks today, are like scrapbooking on steroids. Not that people should stop scrapbooking the way they do, if they like it, but I walk into a Michael's and I'm overwhelmed by the thousands of scrapbooking bits and bobs, the racks and racks of eye-popping, overwhelming papers, the gazillion stickers, ornate borders, rubber stamps, perforated, punch out frames, cutesy, kitschy, color explosions...You know what I love? Scrapbooks with black paper. Scrapbooks where the photographs speak loudest on the page, and are only garnished by handwritten captions and notes, and in a nut shell, that's what this book is: a scrapbook harkening back to yesteryear, except that Lartigue happened to be an exceptional photographer, and these aren't just any old snapshots. I'd heard of Lartigue before, but wasn't, in any way, intimately familiar with his work, when I blindly grabbed this book off the shelf in the fine arts department at the library (about the dozenth book I'd glanced at in the succession of a few minutes), it fell open to a pair of photographs of a young boy, sweetly sleeping (faking it or not) that had an immensely charming and nostalgic quality about them, and I didn't need to see anymore to know that I wanted to see more, and in it went into my trusty tote bag (which says "I like big books and I cannot lie" and most certainly does not lie).

This is probably a most unhelpful review, but even if you're not familiar with Lartigue, if you like antique scrapbooks, if you want something more intimate, a breather from photography presented in uniform plates, one per page, and having to reference the index for captions, this one is a treat.

[Timothy Roessler · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are photographs that are fizzy as champagne and twice as intoxicating. Full of life, whether that life is on sporting grounds, in the boudoir or in a tranquil restaurant by the sea. Beautiful and charming.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great look at Lartigue's body of work. I admire him for dedicating himself to writing, painting, and photography equally. His work in unique in that he kept it in a scrapbook format so there is a lot of context given with the images and being from an upper class family he had rare access to people and places others did not.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lartigue is a horrible enabler for my maudlin side, but I hope the photographs are worth it.