☛ Le Journal de la photographie: “Yvonne, Koko et Bibi. Royan, juillet 1924” by Jacque Henri Lartigue. © Jacques Henri Lartigue – Ministère de la Culture – France / AAJHL.

I have written about French photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue before to show how his work had influenced American film director Wes Anderson and how it is being explicitly featured in both Rushmore (1998) and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2005): see Wes Anderson and Jacques Henri Lartigue.

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Le Journal de la photographie entry about Lartigue is basically a reproduction of the press release written by curator Maryse Cordesse for the 44th Arles photography festival known in French as Les Rencontres d’Arles 2013, which theme for this year is black-and-white photography (see the official presentation by Director François Hebel, “Arles in Black”, as well as a review in The Guradian).

On the official page of the Arles exhibition Jacque Henri Lartigue, the presentation is available both in French and in English. The exhibition, which will run from July 1st to August 25, 2013, is organized in collaboration with the Donation Jacques Henri Lartigue. In the press release, the exhibition is said to concentrate around the photos produced during the 1920s, while Lartigue was happily married to Madeleine Messager, known as Bibi. Lartigue had met Bibi, the daughter of the composer André Messager, in may 1917. They married on December 17, 1919 and, on August 23, 1921, the family welcomes Dani, Lartigue’s first and only son. The marriage will hold strong for a whole decade, until Bibi put a end to it in 1930. Curator Maryse Cordesse explains:

The years with Bibi (1918-1930) form a highly constructed whole in Lartigue’s life and work. Robust and joyful, Bibi provided an anchor for his anxious sensibility and Lartigue magnified his wife’s serene force by his use of the panoramic format. It was also with her that he made his most beautiful autochromes. (read more)

The photos below were retrieved either from Le Journal de la photographie or from the exhibition official website.