[Motor Car on Mountain Road, France]

Jacques-Henri Lartigue

1915 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

Lartigue made this bird's eye view of a friend's motor car skidding around a mountain curve on November 9, 1915. Twenty years old and recently discharged from the army for physical unfitness, Lartigue and Jacques Dupuis (the car driver) had each purchased Bugatti-designed Peugeots and set out for the south of France to race their cars and escape the realities of war. On a rough road in the mountains near Nice, Lartigue set a visual trap like a sharpshooter dug into a hillside, effectively picking off his quarry racing up the hill. Few artists of any era recorded such unfettered, pure physical pleasure with a camera (or an automobile) as did Lartigue. The print is a rarity, having been made by the artist himself, a half century prior to his public recognition.

Artist

Jacques-Henri Lartigue

Date

1915

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2002