Hurricane Sandy

Jacques Henri Lartigue

Jacques Henri Lartigue Storm in Nice 1925

Wishing all my friends in the affected areas of the Eastern Seaboard safety from Sandy during the next few days.

Renée Perle Redux

My fascination with Renée Perle, Jacques Henri Lartigues most famous muse continues.  She is almost as mysterious as the Mona Lisa, we know very little about her.  She was with Lartigue for two years and she painted, I suspect she was influenced and encouraged by Lartigue and the artistic crowd he ran around with, she probably felt she needed to explore her own artistic capabilities.  These photographs by Lartigue are of Renée in Lartigues studio in Paris with her work.  The paintings are naive and as you can see she had a tendency to paint portraits in her own image, whether this was because she was narcissistic or merely practising with what she new best and felt comfortable with is something we shall probably never know.

I would love to know what happened to her after her break up with Lartigue, the only information that I have managed to unearth is she died in the south of France in 1977.  She must have married as she did have a step daughter who had an oil painting of Renée, all Renées carefully preserved belongings and collections were dispersed by the Paris auction house Tajan in 2000 and 2001.  One thing we do know is that she has been immortalised by Lartigues photographs. Renées image, great personal style and mystique continue to inspire...

Alexi Lubomirski for German Vogue March 2009

Strange to think if Lartigue had not met Renée by chance in Paris in 1930, she would be a forgotten lady, sunk without trace.

To see previous posts on Renée go here

Not quite ready to relinquish Summer

Jacques Henri Lartigue, Bibi at the New Eden Roc Restaurant, Cap d'Antibes, 1920.

When I lived in England as soon as the August Bank holiday approached it was time to pretty much give up on Summer, thoughts of crisp, autumnal days, boot and wellie clad bracing country walks, cocooning in cashmere, holing up in country pubs and cosy evening's in on comfy sofas, warmed by the heat of a roaring open fire with a good film or book and a good bottle of red, abounded.

No, No, No I am not in England and despite all the September issue glossies showing off autumn/winter fashions I am not giving up on summer just yet, as I sit typing this the temperature outside is 36 degrees Celsius, The Pyrenees is one of hottest areas in France at the present time. The heat is stifling, stepping outside, is like walking into an oven, thank heaven for the thick walled, tiled floored, shuttered, coolness of the old farmhouse in which we live, we are just about managing to keep cool.

After a long summer of looking after others holiday needs, next weekend we are off to La Cote d'Azur for two, long weeks, the first time in ages we have had a two week holiday, I can't wait to swap the late summer humidity of the Pyrenees for the drier heat of The Mediterranean and the breezes coming in off the coast.  The season is long in the East and Autumn does not really start to kick in until mid October, early September is one of the best times to be there, the holiday hoards will have gone so there will be more space on the beaches and the sea will be lovely and warm... Autumn will just have to wait.

Jacques Henri Lartigue, Bibi in Cannes, 1927.

Renée Perle

 

Renée Perle, was a Romanian Jewish girl who moved to Paris.  She became a fashion model and in 1930 she met famous French Photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894-1986) who is considered to be one of the leading photographers of the twentieth century (and my personal favourite). Renée became his muse and lived with Lartigue as his girlfriend.

As you can see from the photographs Renée had a great sense of style. Lartigues fabulous photographs of her capture the essence of 'The Jazz Age' and at the same time they are so classical that they have a timeless quality to them.  These photographs continue to inspire fashion designers and stylists today.

Renée passed away in the South of France in 1977.

From Jacques Henri Lartigues Diary, Paris, March 7, 1930.

“Half past five at the Embassy. I wait for my “parasol” from last night. I need a whisky. I’m very shy deep down, and ready to be furious if she doesn’t show up. It’s my curiosity that would be most disappointed…

Five thirty-five. There she is! Can it really be her? Ravishing, tall, slim, with a small mouth and full lips, and dark porcelain eyes. She casts aside her fur coat in a gust of warm perfume. We’re going to dance. Mexican? Cuban? Her very small head sits on a very long neck. She is tall; her mouth is at the level of my chin. When we dance my mouth is not far from her mouth. Her hair brushes against both.

“Romanian. My name is Renée P… I was a model at Doeuillet…” Delicious. She takes off her gloves. Long, little girl’s hands. Something in my mind starts dancing at the thought that one day perhaps she would agree to paint the nails of those hands…”

John Galliano calls Renée Perle, the inspiration behind his fall show (2007), "a kittenish Parisian coquette." Jacques Henri Lartigue, who immortalized her in his pictures, had another term: angel. The revered photographer met his muse in 1930 on the Rue de la Pompe. He thought she was Mexican, but he guessed wrong; Perle was Romanian, and a model once employed by the French dressmaker Doeuillet. "She is beautiful," Lartigue told his diary. "The small mouth with the full painted lips! The ebony black eyes. From under her fur coat comes a warmth of perfume. The head looks petite on her long neck." The pair spent two years together, cavorting as if on eternal vacation in Cannes, Juan-les-Pins, and Biarritz, with Lartigue's camera always at the ready. In the "shadowless heaven" of his photographs, glamorous women, including his first and second wives, Bibi and Florette, abound, but Perle's lacquered hair, slender silhouette, modern T-shirts, armfuls of bangles, and talonlike nails shone the brightest. "Around her," Lartigue wrote, "I see a halo of magic."
—Laird Borrelli

 There are plenty of books chronicling Lartigue's work.