Lartigue first saw the sea in 1897. From then on he passed a third of his life contemplating the marine landscape, travelling it, describing the billows, the elegance of the bathers, water games, life at the seaside. He frequented the beaches of Trouville, Biarritz and the Côte d’Azur, of the North Sea, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and all of them became a “location” for portraying society rendez-vous, with the ladies of Villerville on the promenade d’Etretat – sheltered from the sun and wind by straw hats and umbrellas – or recording changes in society, such as bathers engaged in water sports, canoeing and fishing, body-building or ball games.
Lartigue first saw the sea in 1897. From then on he passed a third of his life contemplating the marine landscape, travelling it, describing the billows, the elegance of the bathers, water games, life at the seaside. He frequented the beaches of Trouville, Biarritz and the Côte d’Azur, of the North Sea, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and all of them became a “location” for portraying society rendez-vous, with the ladies of Villerville on the promenade d’Etretat – sheltered from the sun and wind by straw hats and umbrellas – or recording changes in society, such as bathers engaged in water sports, canoeing and fishing, body-building or ball games.