Jacques Henri Lartigue: Life in Colour

‘Colour is the best way to express the charm and poetry of life.’ / ‘I have never taken a picture for any other reason than that at that moment it made me happy to do so.’ Silvana Empain, 1961 © Jacques Henri Lartigue © Ministère de la Culture, France / MPP-AAJHL 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 exhib