Snap judgment: how photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue captured the moment

Sometimes institutions can change the history of art. Often by exclusion – one thinks of the Salon des Refusés in Paris in 1863 and how it marked the beginning of the end of Beaux Arts classicism and signalled the birth of impressionism. A prevailing taste is suddenly seen as outmoded or moribund and culture decides to take a 180-degree swerve. Or, alternatively, institutions bring about change by giving the imprimatur of acceptance. TheSensation show at the Royal Academy, London, in 1997, for example, legitimised and enshrined the raw iconoclasm and entrepreneurialism of the Young British Artists...