On April 6, 2020, La Poste issues a block of stamps, illustrated by the self-portraits of Félix NADAR on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his birth. This block composed of 4 stamps and 8 vignettes allows you to make a flip book!
Novelist, journalist and cartoonist, Félix Tournachon dit Félix Nadar is best known today for his work as a photographer. The testimonies are unanimous: he is a character out of the ordinary by his size, his energy, his curiosity and the sympathy that he inspires. His friends are countless. From his bohemian youth, he frequented the fine flower of Parisian literature: Charles Baudelaire, Gérard de Nerval, Henry Murger, Théophile Gautier. When he got into photography, everyone from the arts, letters and the press posed in his magnificent studio at 35 boulevard des Capucines where everything was red, up to Nadar’s jacket. He produced the most famous portraits of Baudelaire, Nerval, Hugo, George Sand, Manet, Sarah Bernhardt, Armand Barbès. Despite the success of his workshop, which lasted until the middle of the 20th century, photography soon became insufficient for him. He embarked with passion on some of the great adventures of his century: ballooning, the use of electricity, the republican combat. Jules Verne takes him as a model of his hero Michel Ardan in From the Earth to the Moon. He fights all injustices in the newspapers where he writes until his death. Acquired by the state in 1950, his photographs, archives and correspondence are kept in French public collections, including the National Library of France.
Sylvie Aubenas Curator, director of the prints and photography department of the National Library of France
The virtual exhibition of the National Library of France:
« Les Nadar, une légende photographique » : http://expositions.bnf.fr/les-nadar/
