Biography
Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, known as Nadar, was born on 6th April 1820 in Paris. He begins his career as an illustrator of caricatures for subversive papers like Charivari. In 1853 he produced Nadar Pantheon, a large lithography representing 300 celebrities. This achievement led him to pursue photography and in 1854 he published a series of portraits of the greatest personalities from his period such as Baudelaire, Victor Hugo, Guy de Maupassant, Édouard Manet… All personalities from the 19th century pose for him. The expectation of the revelation of the inner nature of the person showed through in his photographs. He then made photographical portrait an aesthetic genre. Nadar also contributes to restore art’s prestige. He frees photography from the constraints imposed by the natural light by designing a process of artificial lighting which combines lights of different intensity. In his studio in Paris, Nadar develops his own style, breaking completely from the period’s customs. He imposes a style stripped bare, destined to capture and reveal his subject’s personality. «I will never admit that the lens hardly conveys what it sees»
COUNTRY : France
THEMES :
Celebrities - History
COLLECTIONS :
Masters