Nadar (photographer)

French photographer, caricaturist, and writer

• Born: April 5, 1820
• Place of Birth: Paris, France
• Died: March 21, 1910
• Place of Death: Paris, France

Education: Le Collège Bourbon

Significance: Nadar was considered to be one of the finest portrait photographers of his day, and he was also known for taking the first aerial photographs.

Background

Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, later known as Nadar, was born April 5, 1820, in Paris, France. His father, Victor Tournachon, owned a printing and publishing business. His mother was Thérèse Mailliet. His parents married in 1826, when Nadar was six years old and his brother Alban-Adrien was one year old.

Nadar studied at Le Collège Bourbon from 1833 to 1836. His father died in 1837, and Nadar began studying medicine in Lyon. He wrote theater reviews and worked for various journals to earn money for his studies. He stopped studying medicine in 1838 and focused on writing and drawing caricatures instead. He was given the nickname tourne à dard—wordplay on his last name, Tournachon. The nickname meant "twist of the stinger," and it was given to him because of his sarcastic wit. In 1839, he began using the nickname as his pseudonym. He shortened it to Nadard, then to Nadar. He became successful writing and drawing caricatures for the Paris newspapers. He also wrote pantomimes that were performed in Paris theaters. He was one of a circle of bohemian artists and writers who were considered radical thinkers of the time.

Life’s Work

In 1854, Nadar’sPanthéon Nadar was published as a set of lithographs. Lithographs were an early form of photography. Panthéon Nadar included almost three hundred caricatures of famous Parisians. The same year, Nadar married Ernestine-Constance Lefèvre and set up a photography studio. He paid for his brother Adrien to have photography lessons so that he could run the studio. Nadar also studied with a skilled photographer. When Adrien failed to make the business a success, Nadar took it over. The two brothers worked together for a time, until Adrien said he wanted to work on his own. So Nadar withdrew and set up a studio in his home in 1855. Adrien began calling himself Nadar jeune (meaning "Nadar the younger") and won a photography gold medal for photographs that both he and Nadar had worked on. Nadar was outraged that his brother was taking credit for his own work as well as for using his name. In 1859, he won a lawsuit that forced Adrien to stop using the name Nadar jeune.

Nadar excelled as a portrait photographer and became known as one of the leading portraitists of his time. His friends and acquaintances, famous artists, musicians, writers, and politicians became his subjects. They included Charles Baudelaire, Sarah Bernhardt, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Édouard Manet, George Sand, Giuseppe Verde, and Jules Verne.

Nadar’s style was artistic, and his expressive portraits captured the mood and personality of his subjects. He used dark backgrounds, urged his subjects to dress in ordinary clothes, and used natural poses. In contrast to many other portraitists of the time, he printed the photograph in a large format—11 × 8 1/4 inches. However, after he built a large studio in 1861, he printed smaller copies in order to make money to pay back his building loan. These small photographs, called cards de visit, were popular with the public.

Nadar was one of the first to use electric lighting in a photography studio. His use of mirrors and light bathed his subjects in light and dramatic shadows. Often, one side of the person’s face would be brightly lit; the other side would be dark.

In 1858, Nadar became the first to take an aerial photograph from a tethered balloon. He had tried in 1857, but the balloon’s gases ruined his negatives. Nadar believed that aerial photography would have many uses—in mapmaking, surveying, and wartime reconnaissance. In 1863, he had an enormous balloon built, called Le Géant, meaning "the giant." He hoped to make money with it and charged thirteen passengers one thousand francs each to ride on its first voyage. However, in its second flight, he, his wife, and his passengers were injured when Le Géantcrashed. Nadar was very good at self-promotion and commissioned illustrations of the event, which he sold to the newspapers. He also wrote and published Mémoires du Géantin 1864and used the proceeds to repair and exhibit the balloon. Nadar’s adventures inspired his friend, novelist Jules Verne, to write Five Weeks in a Balloon.

Nadar was also interested in photographing the areas beneath Paris. The novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo had made the sewers of Paris famous. Nadar photographed first the Parisian catacombs from 1861 to 1862 and then the sewers from 1864 to 1865. He was the first photographer to try to take underground photographs using electric lights. Above-ground batteries were attached to long wires that powered the subterranean photography. Although not considered to be an artistic success, these experiments increased Nadar’s fame.

During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) and the siege of Paris, Nadar and his company of military balloonists made observations above the city. Although Paris was blockaded, he organized balloon delivery of mail from Paris to Normandy. This effort was the first airmail postal service.

In 1873, Nadar and his wife moved to the country, but he used his Paris studio to host the first impressionist salon in 1874. The exhibiting artists included Cézanne, Degas, Monet, Pissarro, and Renoir. Nadar’s son Paul began running the studio in 1884, and Nadar gave him legal ownership of the studio in 1895. After he retired, Nadar wrote his memoirs, which were published in 1900 as Quand J’étais Photographe (When I Was a Photographer.)

Nadar died on March 20, 1910. In 1955, the Prix Nadar was created by the l’Association des Gens d’Images as an annual award to honor a photography book published in France. In 1979, Nadar was named to the International Photography Hall of Fame (IPHF). The IPHF honors pioneers and innovators of photography.

Impact

Nadar’s photographic portraits of famous bohemian nineteenth century writers, artists, and actors captured their personalities for their contemporaries and for future generations. Nadar led the way in aerial photography, inventing photo-essays, and using artificial lighting for underground photography.

Personal Life

Nadar married Ernestine-Constance Lefèvre on September 11, 1854. Their son, Paul Nadar, was born February 8, 1856.

Bibliography

Ang, Tom. Photography: The Definitive Visual History. New York: DK, 2014. Print.

Brooks, Raillan. "Eye Altitude." Audubon May–June 2015: 12. Print.

Hambourg, Maria Morris. Nadar. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013. Print.

Hannavy, John. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography. New York: Routledge, 2013. Print.

"Nadar [Gaspard Félix Tournachon]." The J. Paul Getty Museum. The J. Paul Getty Trust, n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1587/nadar-gaspard-flix-tournachon-french-1820-1910/>.

Nadar, Félix, Eduardo Cadava, and Liana Theodoratou. When I Was a Photographer. Cambridge: MIT, 2015. Print.

Pound, Cath. "Felix Nadar: The World's First Celebrity Photographer." BBC, 14 Jan. 2019, www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190114-flix-nadar-the-worlds-first-celebrity-photographer. Accessed 29 Sept. 2024.

Whitmire, Vi. "Nadar (Gaspard Felix Tournachon)." International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum. Photographic Art & Science Foundation, n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.iphf.org/hall-of-fame/nadar-gaspard-felix-tournachon/>.