Jacquesa-Henri Lartigue: Les Femmes Aux Cigarettes (1980)

Les Femmes Aux Cigarettes is a droll and delectable selection of Jacques-Henri Lartigue’s photographs of those daring darlings, the cabaret stars—comediennes and chanteuses who dominated the night life and demi-monde of Paris in the late 1920s. Among some eighty comely beauties, each a provocatrice par excellence and each photographed au cigarette, are the Dolly Sisters and Josephine Baker. Fifty years after the photographs were taken, the ladies have continued to tickle Lartigue’s funny bone, and he spent the better part of a year assembling this collection. His delight in the lunacy of it all comes through with an engagingly light-hearted tone. Included with the photographs is an introduction by the great photographer himself. Les Femmes Aux Cigarettes will surely enchant all who fancy Lartigue’s photographic bravura and his inimitable sense of fun. Condition: very good in slightly worn dust-wrapper.