Nadar

Nadar, whose real name was Felix Tournachon (1820-1910), was a conspicuous, even astonishing presence in nineteenth-century France. Engaging and quick-witted, he invented himself over and over as a bohemian writer, a journalist, a romantic utopian, a caricaturist, a portrait photographer, a balloonist, an entrepreneur, a prophet of aeronautics. The name "Nadar" was on everyone's lips. Today, it is Nadar's photography that is remembered. His sitters, who were often his friends, included the great men and women of his time: Dumas, Rossini, Baudelaire, Sarah Bernhardt, Daumier, Berlioz, George Sand, Delacroix.