Jacques Henri Lartigue (; 13 June 1894 – 12 September 1986) was a French photographer and painter, known for his photographs of automobile races, planes and female Parisian fashion models. Biography Born in Courbevoie in western Paris to a wealthy family, Lartigue started taking photographs when he was seven. He photographed his friends and family at play – running and jumping; racing home-built race cars; making kites, gliders as well as aeroplanes; and climbing the Eiffel Tower. He was one of the first artists to use the Kodak Brownie camera for snapshots. He also photographed sport events, such as the Coupe Gordon Bennett and the French Grand Prix, early flights of aviation pioneers such as Gabriel Voisin, Louis Blériot, Hubert Latham, Louis Paulhan and Roland Garros. He also captured in his camera, tennis players such as Suzanne Lenglen at the French Open tennis championships. Many of his initial, famous photographs were originally captured in stereo, for example seen in Hidden Depths but he also produced a vast number of images in all formats and media including glass plates in various sizes, autochromes, and film. He developed his own photographs from a young age. While he sold a few photographs to sporting magazines such as , in middle age he concentrated on painting which also was his source of income and living. However, he continued taking photographs and maintained written journals about them throughout his life. At the age of 69 his boyhood photographs were 'discovered' by Charles Rado of the Rapho agency who introduced Lartigue to John Szarkowski, curator of the Museum of Modern Art, who arranged an exhibition of his work at the museum. Life magazine published the photos in 1963. This exhibition gained him fame and exposure to the industry. He then got opportunities to work with several fashion magazines and became famous in other countries as well. In 1974, he was commissioned by the newly elected President of France Valéry Giscard d'Estaing to shoot his official portrait. The result was a simple photo, simply lit, using the national flag as a background. He was rewarded with his first French retrospective at the the following year, which paved the way for more commissions from fashion and decoration magazines. Although best known as a photographer, Lartigue was also a good painter. He often showed up in the official salons in Paris and in the south of France from 1922.