...[a] concise and thoughtful new biography ... It’s among the satisfactions of Begley’s The Great Nadar: The Man Behind the Camera that he delivers a subtle accounting of Nadar’s career as a photographer while reminding us of his subject’s many other talents and exploits ... It’s remarkable that Begley’s is the first [biography] in English. He’s found a great life to delineate — this book, like that life, roars past with a whooshing sound ... This story, in other words, would be hard to mangle, and Begley most assuredly does not.
Mr. Begley has combed through an array of literature, letters, guest books, invitations, drawings and other miscellany to tease out a nuanced portrait of one of the world’s first celebrity artist-entrepreneurs. Above all, though, it is Mr. Begley’s careful study of Nadar’s portraits of famous writers, artists, actors and composers (many of them reproduced here) that recommends The Great Nadar as a window on an era of extraordinary artistic endeavor.
Begley does a masterful job of evoking this milieu, whose members were sympathetic to the ideal of a republic, as the reign of King Louis-Philippe slowly lost its grip on the public imagination ... We can be grateful to Begley for capturing some of that quicksilver spirit, that quintessentially Parisian sensibility, which left us with images that are, in their bewitching way, timeless.
The Great Nadar lacks the obvious commercial appeal of Begley’s previous biography, a capacious, revealing life of the novelist John Updike, so that it comes across as a labor of love. Yet the word 'labor' hardly characterizes the suavity, swiftness and economy of its text. The book is a pleasure to read, though one could almost buy it just for the pictures ... In a substantial appendix, titled 'Mementos of Nadar’s World,' he presents a gallery of the notables who visited the photographer’s studio.Begley quotes from the funny and eccentric comments these and other clients left in Nadar’s guest book. The result makes for a delightful close to a concise and delightful biography.
...Nadar is depicted with a vividness commensurate with his audacity in this scintillating biography ... Begley situates his portrait of Nadar within a colorful evocation of the bohemian circles in which his subject both flourished and frequently provoked controversy. The book includes detailed descriptions of the nuances of Nadar’s unique photographic portraits. These descriptions capture the artistic qualities that attracted Nadar’s clients to his studio and that make these works his enduring legacy.
Begley capably brings to life the lost Parisian world where Nadar held court. His outsized personality dominates this enjoyable and amply illustrated volume.
