Nadar

(1820-1910) (Félix Tournachon)

   photographer, cartoonist, balloonist

   Born Félix Tournachon in Paris, Nadar (the pseudonym by which he is known) studied medicine for a short period but soon left to pursue a career in literature. under the name Nadar, he began to publish articles and drew cartoons for periodicals. in 1849, he founded the Revue comique and the Petit Journal pour rire and, having opened a photography studio with his brother, published, beginning in 1854, under the title Panthéon Nadar, a series of portraits of celebrated contemporaries, including théophile gautier, alexandre dumas, george sand, sarah bernhardt, gustave doré, rachel, charles baudelaire, gérard de nerval, and honoré daumier. The studio soon became the most distinguished in Paris and was a meeting place for intellectuals and artists. As a photographer and portraitist, Nadar sought to record what he described as the "moral intelligence" of his subjects, and sought an interaction between the subject and the photographer. All his portraits were taken in the studio against a plain background, as he sought to produce "an intimate resemblance." Nadar is also known for making the first aerial (1858) and underground (1861) photographs. An ardent balloonist, he patented his aerial photographs for surveying and mapmaking and, in 1861, went into the sewers and catacombs of Paris to take pictures, using a carbon arc light. in 1863, he built his own balloon, Le Géant (Mémoires du Géant, 1864), and with his son in 1886 pioneered the idea of the photo interview. Nadar later founded the magazine Paris Photographe (1891) and wrote a number of books, including his autobiography, Quand j'étais photographe (1910).