nterview - Jacques-Henri Lartigue (1983)

 by `bdwfh, Feb 5, 2011, 5:01:16 PM

 Journals / Art News / Photography

So, I was sitting back the other day watching one of those BBC photographic
masters shows, and was most pleased to find out that this episode featured an
interview with one of my favourite characters in photography, Jacques-Henri
Lartigue. I wanted the transcript from it so I sat there and took notes as I listened.
Now, just in case anybody else is interested, I share it here.

Interview - Jacques-Henri Lartigue (1983)

Lartigue took his first photograph in 1901 at the age of seven. Richard Avedon has
called Lartigue the most deceptively simple and penetrating photographer in the
history of art. But Lartigue was also a painter and a writer, and never set out to
create art. He was the perfect amateur photographer who simply photographed
what he loved. For 80 years he has filled album after album with his photographs.

Interviewer: Why do you make photo albums?

Lartigue: As a little boy, I already had a passion for preserving the fleeting images
of life, so I took photographs. I told myself I must keep them in albums. I started
with very small ones, but I soon realized that I wasn't interested in such a small
size. I tried out various sizes and decided on this large one. I was barely ten-years-
old. I have kept the same size and format,

Interviewer:: Is it a need to make order of time passing?

Lartigue: Not order. I want to catch time.

Interviewer:: It's like an aide memoir?

Lartigue: It's more than that. It's an obsession with catching time as it passes.
Interviewer:: Do you find your subjects, or do your subjects find you?

Lartigue: The subject always finds me. I am only the spectator. I don't run after it.
On the contrary, it comes towards me.

Interviewer:: Are there subjects that cry out to be photographed?

Lartigue: They all cry out, and often very fast! I used to be a tennis player and I
have a quick eye. I react very quickly!

Interviewer:: Is everything worth photographing?

Lartigue: Everything which pleases me, fills me with enthusiasm, delight and
wonder. The rest I pass by.

Interviewer:: Is it an act of love?

Lartigue: Absolutely! Of passion! Everything is passion; writing, painting,

photography. One just has to choose.

Interviewer:: An invitation to dream?

Lartigue: To dream, to see reality when it's beautiful, an invitation to rejoice, to

love. Everything is fascinating;…nature, the talent of others. Music above all!

Interviewer:: Your enthusiasm has become legendary. Were you born with it, or
did you acquire it?

Lartigue: There was a fairy at my cradle. I have looked after her gifts. I have
tended them well, like a gardener.
Interviewer:: They also grow through suffering?

Lartigue: Through suffering and through all other means. All you need is passion.

****Lartigue flips through one of his albums

Lartigue: The Bois de Boulogne. Every day pretty women displayed their dresses.
And every day at lunch time, after school, I rushed to see them. I was fascinated
by fashion… their hats… I just liked seeing pretty women.

Interviewer:: Did you ask, "may I take your photo?"

Lartigue: No, no. Sitting on a chair I saw them coming.. I though this one is
pretty…. I got up… and "click!" My camera was very noisy. When they were alone,
they smiled. Their gentlemen were usually furious. I didn't care, I was young. What
counted was that I had my photo. Every time you met somebody, you raised you r
hat. This went on every morning of the week.

Interviewer:: They walked to show off their dresses?

Lartigue: Yes, to meet each other and show their dresses… and their hats. They
needed high carriages. They didn't fit into ordinary cars.

Interviewer:: Did they ever see your photographs?

Lartigue: One lady asked me to bring it to her but I was shy and panicked. She
was a famous dancer, Regine Aboded. I was only 17 years old, so I sent my
brother.
Interviewer:: Why is this photo so famous? ***Points to Lartigues "Avenue du
Boise de Boulogne (1911)

Lartigue: You must ask the collectors. This one is just as good (points to another
shot of a pretty girl wearing a fancy hat) The composition makes the picture. I
could see the car was in the right place and not behind her.

Interviewer:: Where did you develop?

Lartigue: In a little dark room at home.

Interviewer:: Is there a decisive moment for a photograph?

Lartigue: Definitely, but it's a fraction of a second.

Interviewer:: How does one recognize it?

Lartigue: It's like a tennis match. You anticipate the moment. You do it before
you've had time to think.

Interviewer:: What has happened to elegance and style?

Lartigue: We have had several wars. People are jealous, and want everybody to
be the same.

Interviewer:: People's priorities have also changed.

Lartigue: Yes, we don't lead the same lives… there were fewer people… one went
horse-riding in the park

Interviewer:: Was it a better world?

Lartigue: To me, whatever happens is alright. Even now when people say times
are bad, I find fascinating things. I can get to New York in 6 hours, that's good too.
I have been put into this epoch. I must make the most of it. All times can be
happy, all countries beautiful.

(Pointing to another image) This is the time of the garconne. Women dressed like
boys. Previously women couldn't wear trousers. Marlene Dietrich was arrested on
the Place de la Concorde.

(Points to another image) These are the first jupe-culottes. The first woman who
had the courage caused a scandal in Monte Carlo.

Interviewer:: This is really like a family album?

Lartigue: It is not my family, it is "me." Everything I love, everything which

interested me.

(Points to another image) Dressed for a drive… no hood, no windscreen.

(Points to another image) My car. I always had sports cars. They intrigued me.

(Points to another image) I called this photo "Proust." It reminds me of his poetry.

Interviewer:: Some photos are like Proust's Madeleine – a window on the

absolute.

Lartigue: That would be nice. I admire Proust. That's why I take photographs; to
live on through one's pictures… to try at least. .

Interviewer:: You have to be humble to feel like this?

Lartigue: I don't know. But I am humble because I hate people who are not.
Interviewer:: Your photos are often moving, but you seem to avoid the tragic
picture.

Lartigue: No, no. I don't avoid them, but I don't like preserving tragic moments,
not even in my memory because they hurt me. During the war and the liberation I
took rather tragic photos.

Interviewer:: Does the photo represent reality, or does it interpret it?

Lartigue: It represents the reality of details. Reality itself is too beautiful, too
elusive to be grasped.

Interviewer: Where is your eye, in your head or in your soul?

Lartigue: In my guts and in my heart!

Interviewer:: These are the Autochrome Lumiere plates for the first colour prints.
The packet has never been opened.

Lartigue: What year?

Interviewer:: Around 1910.

Lartigue: This is the camera I used most, a Block Note Gaumont. It was very
modern for its time.

Interviewer:: What year?

Lartigue: I started to use it in 1904.

Interviewer:: Was it used for "reportage?"

Lartigue: No, for that I had a camera with a curtain, from 1910 onwards for
airplanes.

This is a Kodak for landscape and travel. They were beautiful objects. One would
look through here. I can't remember how to work it.

Now here is something very rare. When I was very small my mother made an
album, but she didn't "fix" them, so the old paper has faded. These are my first
photos, at the age of six. (Points to a couple of images) My father took this one of
me on a train… my mother and myself. She called it "Jacques photographic
attempts." One couldn't call it "photography." This was 1899… 1900… she dated
everything. These are my first drawings; a castle. This is my first photo. This is a
later print. This is my father and mother, my second photo. You have seen
something very very precious.

Interviewer:: Do photographs fascinate us because they remind us of our

mortality?

Lartigue: That's not the reason I do it. I do it to record a moment of wonder,

excitement, interesting people…

Interviewer:: Do you like looking at them?

Lartigue: I never do. There are cooks who pick cherries to preserve them and
make jam. I am a cook who makes jam, but I prefer to eat fresh fruit.

Interviewer:: Why take photographs? You could carry memories inside you.

Lartigue: That's how I started. I just blinked and pretended I had taken a
photograph.

Interviewer:: Why didn't you just keep it in your head?

Lartigue: Because I am also a cook who hates cherries to be wasted.

(Points to photo) 1911, Issy-les-Moulineaux. People started flying there. This one
was already in the air. Like everybody else, I dreamed of flying away.

Interviewer:: One was totally exposed?

Lartigue: The air… the wind… the propeller's noise…all gave you an extraordinary
feeling.

Interviewer:: You still have this passion for things that move – cars, planes?

Lartigue: Yes, but now I like things which go to the moon. The others have
become so vulgar. Too many to amuse me any longer.

Interviewer:: This is called "Flight and Fall," do you enjoy little accidents?

Lartigue: They amuse me. They happen quickly. But to photo preserves them.

Interviewer:: You are a little boy who laughs when someone slips on a banana
skin.

Lartigue: Worse! I am an incorrigible little boy.

Interviewer:: You paint, write and photograph. Can all three express the same?

Lartigue: No, they compliment each other in order to express something.

Interviewer:: Painting is an accumulation of time, photography is the frozen

moment..

Lartigue: Painting comes from inside, photography from outside. Photography

happens very quickly. Painting can catch the elusive. Photography is a lighter
game. Painting is a profound one.

Interviewer:: The joy of a painting which has come off is longer lasting?

Lartigue: Yes, and the suffering when it doesn't is worse!

Interviewer:: If you could not paint, write or photograph?

Lartigue: I would make music.

These are my diaries. I wrote every day from the beginning. I made notes on
everything… the weather… the hour I got up… got dressed… went to the park… took
a photo. I made a little sketch of the photos I took. When they didn't come out I
crossed the drawing out. You can always recognize my photographs from my
drawings.

Interviewer:: Do you rewrite a lot?

Lartigue: I don't correct at all. And I don't re-read them.

Interviewer:: (Points to a photo of Picasso) You were great friends?

Lartigue: You can't be "great" friends with him. We were friends. I am a "great"
friend with people who love me..

Interviewer:: Was he easy to photograph?

Lartigue: Very easy, he loved it.

Interviewer:: He was a born actor?

Lartigue: He was a good actor. There he was depressed. He didn't even notice
me.

Interviewer:: Did he accept another artist? Did he recognize your talent?

Lartigue: I don't think so. He thought only about himself and not what I did. He
was easy to photograph. Here I asked him to put on a bowler hat.

Interviewer:: Which of the photos do you prefer?

Lartigue: This is the rarest, his calves with acupuncture needles. Another one I
like…(flips through pages) spoon-feeding Cocteau, it's soft but it's amusing. I like
amusing photographs.

Interviewer:: Avedon claims that a photograph says more about a person than
reality.

Lartigue: Yes, but if you are used to taking photographs, you know beforehand the
way a person will photograph. I know what you would look like. Your eye learns
this.

Interviewer:: You were on of the first to take colour photographs? Do you like it?

Lartigue: Yes and no. They don't last. They change colour. I took some with great
care… beautiful images in the fog. After only a fortnight they had already lost their
subtlety. This is disheartening.

Interviewer:: There's always a feeling of spring.

Lartigue: I long for spring. It's always a feast. This year's album is full of it, and
also my paintings. I like all the seasons but spring makes me want to flourish.
Interviewer:: Photographing is more organized now?

Lartigue: I haven't changed. I photograph everywhere, I don't organize.

Interviewer:: Do you like artificial light?

Lartigue: I don't like artificial light. I always work with natural light. It's more
beautiful, more natural than if you light too much.

Interviewer:: This is a very contracted composition.

Lartigue: Just my eye, a wide angle and the natural light. Nothing special!

Interviewer:: Do you take many exposures?

Lartigue: Never. I have retained my old habit… 3 or 4 at the most.

This is all my luggage! (shows photo) For a big job I take several cameras: one in
the bag, one in the basket. The same basket for many years!

End of interview