Diary of a Century

The process by which an artist constructs not only his/her reality but also his/her personal identity became a favoured subject of bookmakers at the end of the twentieth century, when diaries, self-portraits, and autobiographies abounded. One of the first, and still one of the most beloved, photographic journals is the big and exuberant Diary of a Century. Juxtaposing family snapshots taken by Lartigue (many of them during his youth, but some from later in life) with texts from his daily journals, the boldly designed pages give new life to the belle époque of French history. Only seven years old when he started to photograph, Lartigue used his camera to record the happy times - the travels, hobbies, and pranks - of his wealthy, beautiful, and privileged family. Filled with the wit, openness, curiosity, and spontaneity of childhood, these dynamic images of early airplanes and fashionable women, pets and pools were literally taken out of the family albums and moved into the museum in the 1960s; exchanging their private life for a public one, they paved the way for younger photographers like Bea Nettles, Esther Parada, Deborah Willis, and Lorie Novak to focus on family imagery in their art.