Jaques Henri Lartique: Bibi
The images are part of a family album style theme, a set of images that show the life of his through his eyes through the 1920s. The images contain parts of his marriage with Bibi between 1918-30 (Madeleine Messager – first wife and mother of his only son, Dany), before and a limited few after her also; this was a distinctive and important part of his life and his photographic work. He wrote a diary along side this that went up as short quotes that were, most meaningful, along the gallery walls, above paintings around that same period of time.
“And now it is up to you, modest photographs, to do what you can – very little, I know- to tell everything, make everything be imagined. Everything, even and above all what can not be photographed.”
Lartique was an amateur photographer of precocious talent in 1963, which he was already 69 years old. At 69 he had already build a reputation – mostly in the USA – and these first set of photographs focused on the Belle Epoque.
Lartique and Bibi were an elegant and social couple and took part in the effervescene of the 1920s, this consisted of soirees, trips to deauville, the Basque coast and the cote d’Azur. He often described her for her serene strength by his use of the panoramic format and bibi provided an anchor for her husband’s anxious sensibilities.
He become a professional painter, as he was unsure of himself, but this became a struggle in maintaining their standard of living and therefore gave in to this period’s feverish seductions and was dumbfounded and deeply hurt when Bibi eventually left him in 1930.
Lartique (1894) was given his first camera at the age of eight by his father, who was Lartique’s main influence and encouragement for his work as he also was fond of photography, and from then on Lartique documented every aspect of his life and kept a journal alongside to help him remember details of events and express his thoughts and feelings. His father and Lartique did a lot of sports together and spent their days playing tennis.
They also had a boat house where they spent their leisure time enjoying the sun and having a laugh together.
After the birth of Dani, their son, Lartique wrote in his journal that Bibi wasn’t beautiful now that she has had a kid and needed to take exercise classes; these images below show her doing some exercise classes and the others are of Dani and other family gatherings.
These are other various images he took to document his life.
This shows the blank, emptiness of their relationship towards the end of their relationship and the start of the relationship between Bibi and Yvonne.
This was an image of Bibi in their car.
This was the last photo in the series of family style images and shows his sadness to the separation of him and his wife Bibi.
The images were all given to the gallery by a family friend and knew it was important to him they were shown. The images were all laid out around the room in date order from the start of Lartique and Bibi’s romance until the end. When I take photographs of my family I tend to take shots in the moment and try and capture quick natural shots, along with various posed group photos also to capture the memory in time. After i take my images I try and store them all as a backup file on the computer or on the walls of the house or even printed in scrapbooks for birthdays, Christmas or any other relevant event. Also, I upload them to social networking sites so they can be viewed by the people in it or other members of the public, this is a good way to get your work across. I used each method appropriately for what they’re designed for, for example, a back up file so I can reuse the images like Lartique had done with his film contact sheets.
Contextual Studies 