Photographs of the famous by Felix Nadar
Wednesday 7 March 2012 at 12:08
"Revolving" selfportrait by Nadar, ca. 1865
Félix Nadar was the pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (1 April 1820, Paris – 23 March 1910), a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist and balloonist. He took his first photographs in 1853 and pioneered the use of artificial lighting in photography, working in the catacombs of Paris. Around 1863, Nadar built a huge (6000 m³) balloon named Le Géant (“The Giant”), thereby inspiring Jules Verne’s Five Weeks in a Balloon. Although the “Géant” project was initially unsuccessful Nadar was still convinced that the future belonged to heavier-than-air machines. Later, “The Society for the Encouragement of Aerial Locomotion by Means of Heavier than Air Machines” was established, with Nadar as president and Verne as secretary. Nadar was also the inspiration for the character of Michael Ardan in Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon. In April 1874, he lent his photo studio to a group of painters, thus making the first exhibition of the Impressionists possible. (Wikipedia)
For more photographs by Nadar and for higher resolution copies please see Wikimedia Commons
Charles Baudelaire, 1855
Sarah Bernhardt, 1865
Louis Daguerre, 1844
Claude Debussy, ca. 1908
Eugène Delacroix, 1858
Gustave Doré, ca. 1855
Alexandre Dumas, 1855
Peter Krapotkin, ca. 1870
Franz Liszt, ca.1880
Stéphane Mallarmé, 1896
Edouard Manet, ca. 1870
Claude Monet, 1899
Jaques Offenbach, ca. 1860
Élisée Reclus, ca. 1895
Auguste Rodin, 1893
Henri Rochefort, ca. 1893
George Sand, 1877
Ernest Shackleton, ca. 1909
Jules Verne, ca. 1885
Emile Zola, ca. 1895
Operation Doorstep | The Spirit Photographs of William Hope | The Maps of Piri Reis | Dr Julius Neubronner's Miniature Pigeon Camera |
Art in Art | Huexotzinco Codex | Sessions for the Blind at Sunderland Museum | Eugène von Guérard's Australian Landscapes |
Landscape and Marine Views of Norway | The Mechanism of Human Physiognomy | Space Colony Art from the 1970s | Men in Wigs |
De humana physiognomonia libri IIII (1586) | Field Columbian Museum | Maps from Geographicus | Arnoldus Montanus' New and Unknown World (1671) |
World War II from the Air | Halloween Postcards | Engravings by Dominicus Custos | Kodak No.1 Circular Snapshots |
Kitab al-Bulhan or Book of Wonders (late 14thC.) | The Daddy Long Legs of Brighton | Amundsen's South Pole Expedition (1912) | A Catalogue of Polish Bishops |
Harry Clarke's illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe (1919) | The Embalming Jars of Frederik Ruysch (1710) | Labors of the Months from the Très Riches Heures (1416) | Photographs of the famous by Felix Nadar |
Illuminated pages from 15th century Breviaries |
