Born: 1891 London, England
Died: 1965 London, England
Other name/s: Jimmy Jarché , Jim Jarché
Biography
Pioneering modern press photographer, James (Jimmy) Jarché was born to French-Jewish immigrant parents, Arnold Jarché (or Jarchy) and Amelie (née Solomon), in London, England on 8 September 1891. His parents moved from Paris to London, unable to make a living as photographers. In London, his father soon opened a successful photography business on Union Road, Rotherhithe, where the family also resided. Later, Jarché senior established studios in Tower Bridge Approach and Balham, south London and as a child, James assisted his father in the business.
At just nine years old, Jarché took his first photograph - a recently deceased Australian woman, captured under candlelight in one of London’s poorer districts. Her bereaved son wanted to share her image with relatives who had not seen her for many years. Jarché credited this early experience with removing his fear of death and imbuing him with a resilience that proved invaluable in his subsequent career as a press photographer (Jarché, 1934, p. 6). His father’s premature death in 1901 left him fatherless at the age of ten. Following this, Jarché and his mother began learning photography intensely and teaching each other, but they soon closed two of the photographic studios. Although his apprenticeship with a Bond Street photographer lasted only a day, Jarché had his first photograph published in the Daily Mirror in 1909, swiftly establishing his reputation with newsworthy subjects, including aviator and inventor Louis Blériot (1909) and the Siege of Sidney Street (1911). He subsequently became a photographer for the Daily Sketch (1912–29), The Graphic and the Daily Herald. Notable sitters included Winston Churchill, Dr Crippen, Jacob Epstein and Albert Einstein, and Jarché is credited with taking the first pictures of Edward VIII and the then unknown Wallis Simpson. Jarché’s account of his adventurers as a Fleet Street photographer, entitled People I have Shot, became a best-seller in 1934.
As a press photographer, Jarché’s portfolio encompassed royalty, politicians, celebrities, criminals, workers, and sporting events. He considered his royal portraits as his crowning achievements, despite acknowledging the challenge: ‘[…] it’s not too easy for a photographer to shoot Royalty from any but the strictly official angle,’ (Jarché, 1934, p. 73). His subjects included both British and foreign royals: his photograph of visiting King Amanullah of Afghanistan was a standout that pleased the sitter, who promised that no one else could photograph him during his English tour. Jarché’s personal favourite was a photograph of Queen Alexandra at the Chelsea Flower Show, while the Prince of Wales proved a challenging subject due to his ‘constant change of expression’ (Jarché, 1934, p. 96). As the Daily Sketch’s court photographer, Jarché frequently covered murder trials, catering to the public's grisly fascination. He noted: ‘The Press must give the public what it wants, going to any lengths to capture details and images of notable crimes,’ (Jarché, 1934, p. 51). This led him to France to document the trial of Madame Caillaux, the infamous murderer of the editor of the world-renowned Figaro newspaper. During the Second World War Jarché acted as British war correspondent for The Herald and the Weekly Illustrated and as an official photographer for Life Magazine in the Middle East, visiting Libya in 1941, Burma in 1942, and Berlin after the end of the war. In 1953 he was employed by Odhams Press to photograph the coronation of HRH Queen Elizabeth II in black and white; allegedly, he also took colour photographs, which he sold independently, and was subsequently sacked by Odhams, before working for the Daily Mail until his retirement in 1959.
Despite his often conventional subject matter, Jarché was an experimental photographer. Initially, he used a collapsible 9 x 12 plate camera, but in the early 1930s, he switched to a more flexible miniature Leica 35mm camera. While at the Daily Herald, Jarché pioneered the use of infra-red rays for photographing dimly lit interiors. An experiment conducted at the Carlton Theatre in London's Haymarket - assisted by an expert from the Ilford Photographic Plate, Paper and Film manufacturers - involved installing six infra-red lamps on the theatre balcony. With standard lights off and infra-red ones on, the theatre appeared pitch-dark. Using the latest infra-red plates, the first beyond laboratory settings, the final images were as clear as if shot in broad daylight. This marked the first application of infra-red rays in journalism, with the resulting photograph published in the Daily Herald.
James Jarché died in Hampstead, London, England on 6 August 1965. In the UK public domain, his work is held in the Ben Uri Collection and the National Portrait Gallery; his wartime negatives are housed in the Imperial War Museum, his Daily Herald glass negatives at the National Science and Media Museum, Bradford, while additional negatives can be found in the Getty Images archive. Jarché's grandsons are the British actor, David Suchet and the television newsreader, John Suchet.
Related books
- No author, 'Jarché (1918–1965)', Creative Camera, July/August 1985, p.42
- Derek Smith, James Jarché 1891–1965: Press Picture Pioneer, (London: Paul Popper Ltd, 1980)
- Jarché’s obituary, The Photographic Journal, December 1965, p. 344
- Ainslie Ellis, ‘Jarché: A Portrait of a “Big” Man’, Good Photography, April 1959, pp. 198-203
- S. D. Jouhar, ‘Photographic Personalities: James Jarché’, The Amateur Photographer, 17 December, 1952, p. 635
- James Jarché, People I Have Shot: Reminiscences of a Press Photographer, (London: Methuen, 1934)
Public collections
Related web links
Ben Uri collection
James Jarché in the Ben Uri collection
Ben Uri archive
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [James Jarché]
Ben Uri library
Publications related to [James Jarché] in the Ben Uri Library