Lartigue’s ladies

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There won’t be too many PreWarCar enthusiasts who do not know that beautiful dynamic picture by the great Jacques Henri Lartigue, captioned ‘Delage automobile, Automobile-Club de France Grand Prix, Le Tréport, 26 June 1912’. But Lartigue made many more at least as inspiring photographs of motor cars.

He was a prolific photographer, active in an incredible number of motorsports events ranging from the 1905 Gordon Bennett Cup (aged 11) to the 1978 Monaco Grand Prix (aged 84). Upon his death in 1986, the man had become the first French photographer to donate his life’s work to the French state, leaving over 100,000 photographs as well as 7,000 diary pages and 1,500 paintings. Wow!

Throughout the years a number of (picture) books were published as there were several exhibitions on his work, the last one at Retromobile in 2016, as far as we know. One remarkable note then came from a man named David E. Junker, who wrote about that most famous of all Lartigue photographs ‘The vehicle was not a Delage but a Théophile Schneider which was competing in the 1913 ACF Grand Prix.’ Was Lartigue mistaken? Maybe you guys know more.

The two pictures seen here by the French master come with the following captions: ‘Bibi in ma voiture Amil Grand Sport, 1926’ (Bibi in my Amil Grand Sport car, 1926) and ‘Lilian Mur et Ninette dans ma voiture, Paris, Août 1915’ (Lilian Mur and Ninette in my car, Paris, August 1915). Beautiful shots in our view.

Words by Jeroen Booij. Pictures Jacques Henri Lartigue.

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