Jacques Henri Lartigue took his first photographs when he was six years old, making use of his father’s camera. An indefatigable visual recorder of his own life, he took several thousand photographs, which were published in large-format albums. Parallel to his photography, he was a painter, through which he earned his living. It was not until 1963, with an exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, that Lartigue was finally recognised for his photography. In 1974, President Giscard d’Estaing commissioned him to do his official portrait photograph. In 1979, Lartigue donated his entire photographic oeuvre to the French state.