Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson (22 August 1908 – 3 August 2004) was a French humanist photographer and artist. He is famous for his work in candid photography and was one of the first photographers to use 35mm film. His most important idea was capturing "the decisive moment," which means taking a photo at just the right instant to show something truly special.

He helped start Magnum Photos in 1947, a group of photographers who shared their work and ideas. Later in his life, during the 1970s, Cartier-Bresson stopped taking photographs and began to paint instead.

Early life

Henri Cartier-Bresson was born in Chanteloup-en-Brie, France. His father made thread for sewing, and his mother’s family lived in Normandy. He grew up in a comfortable area of Paris.

As a child, Henri enjoyed taking pictures with a small camera and also liked to draw. He went to a school run by priests and later studied art. He learned from a painter who fought in World War I, but lessons stopped when the painter passed away.

Later, Henri studied in England and then served in the French Army. During this time, a friend gave him his first real camera, which changed his life. He began to see that photos could capture special moments forever.

After leaving the army, Henri traveled to Africa seeking adventure. There, he learned skills that helped him later in photography. When he returned to France, he decided to focus on photography instead of painting, inspired by a photo of children running freely. He bought a small camera that let him blend in and capture real moments in cities across Europe.

United States exhibits

Henri Cartier-Bresson visited the United States in 1935 to show his photos at New York's Julien Levy Gallery. He shared space with photographers Walker Evans and Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Carmel Snow of Harper's Bazaar gave him a job taking fashion pictures, but he struggled because he wasn’t used to working with models. Still, Snow was the first American editor to publish his photographs in a magazine. In New York, he also met photographer Paul Strand, who worked on the Depression-era documentary The Plow That Broke the Plains.

After returning to France, Cartier-Bresson tried to work with famous film director Jean Renoir. He acted in Renoir’s films Partie de campagne and La Règle du jeu, and helped make a film called Life Belongs to Us. During the Spanish Civil War, he worked with Herbert Kline on a film supporting medical services.

In 1937, his first photojournalism work was published when he covered the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth for a French magazine called Regards. He focused on the people celebrating in the streets instead of the king himself. From 1937 to 1939, he worked as a photographer for a French newspaper.

Marriage

In 1937, Henri Cartier-Bresson married a dancer from Java named Ratna Mohini. They lived in a small apartment in Paris with a big space to work and a tiny bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. Cartier-Bresson used this place to develop his films.

World War II service

When World War II began in 1939, Henri Cartier-Bresson joined the French Army. He was later captured by German soldiers and spent time in prisoner-of-war camps, where he worked hard labor. After several attempts, he finally escaped and hid on a farm. He then worked secretly to help others and covered important events during the war.

After the war, he made a documentary about returning prisoners and displaced people. This led to a show of his work at the Museum of Modern Art, which later traveled around the country. In 1947, his first book of photographs was published, with texts written by Lincoln Kirstein and Beaumont Newhall.

Magnum Photos

In early 1947, Henri Cartier-Bresson joined with Robert Capa, David Seymour, William Vandivert, and George Rodger to create Magnum Photos. This was a group-owned picture agency where members shared photo assignments. Each member had specific areas to cover: Rodger focused on Africa and the Middle East, Seymour on Europe, Cartier-Bresson on India and China, Vandivert on America, and Capa traveled wherever there was work. Maria Eisner managed the Paris office, and Rita Vandivert ran the New York office and became the first president of Magnum.

Cartier-Bresson became well-known around the world for his photographs of Gandhi's funeral in India in 1948 and the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. He also took pictures of important events in China, such as the last days of old traditions in Beijing and the independence movement in Indonesia. Magnum aimed to capture the spirit of the times through powerful photographs that showed the world.

The Decisive Moment

In 1952, Cartier-Bresson published a book called Images à la sauvette, with the English title The Decisive Moment. The book featured 126 of his photographs from many places. He believed that the best photographs capture a very important moment that defines an event. One of his famous photos, taken in Paris in 1954, shows people in a lively street scene and is a great example of his style. He held his first exhibition in France in 1955.

Later career

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photography took him to many places, including China, Mexico, Canada, the United States, India, Japan, Portugal, and the Soviet Union. In 1958, while in China, he documented the construction of the Ming Tombs Reservoir. He was the first Western photographer to freely photograph in the Soviet Union after the war.

He photographed famous people like Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, and Montgomery Clift at the Mapes Hotel in Reno, Nevada during a film event. In 1962, he traveled to Sardinia for Vogue, visiting many small towns there. He later stepped back from his main role at Magnum in 1966 to focus more on drawing and painting portraits. He got married again in 1970 and had a daughter named Mélanie in 1972. In 1975, he held his first drawing exhibition in New York and worked on a project about daily life in New Jersey.

Death and legacy

Henri Cartier-Bresson died in Céreste (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France) on 3 August 2004, just before his 96th birthday. He was buried in a nearby cemetery in Montjustin and left behind his wife, Martine Franck, and daughter, Mélanie.

He worked for many years for Life and other magazines, traveling the world to capture important events like the Spanish Civil War, the liberation of Paris in 1944, the Chinese Civil War, and the time when the People’s Republic of China was created. He also took pictures of famous people such as Albert Camus, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse. Many of his most famous photos show everyday moments in life, including Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare.

Cartier-Bresson cared deeply about his privacy and did not like having his picture taken. In 2003, he created the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation with his wife and daughter to keep his work alive and share it with the world. The foundation moved to Le Marais in 2018.

One of his photographs, Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, sold for a very high price in 2011.

Cinéma vérité

His photography helped shape the cinéma vérité style of filmmaking. He inspired the National Film Board of Canada with its Candid Eye series in 1958.

Technique

Henri Cartier-Bresson almost always used a Leica 35 mm rangefinder camera with a normal 50 mm lens, sometimes using a wide-angle lens for landscapes. He would wrap black tape around the camera to make it less noticeable. With fast black and white film and sharp lenses, he could take pictures without being noticed. He never used flash, thinking it was impolite.

He believed in composing his photographs in the viewfinder, not later in the darkroom. He had his photos printed without any cropping or changes. He worked mostly in black and white, except for a few color experiments. He thought the camera was just a tool to capture what he saw, not a toy. He tested new lenses by taking photos of ducks in parks, calling it his only superstition.

Publications

Henri Cartier-Bresson published many books of his photographs throughout his life. Some of his most famous books include The Decisive Moment from 1952 and The Europeans from 1955. These books show his skill in capturing important and exciting moments in everyday life.

He also wrote about his experiences in different places, such as China and India, and shared his thoughts on photography. His work has been celebrated in many languages and countries, with editions in French, German, Italian, and more.

Filmography

Henri Cartier-Bresson worked behind the scenes in films and also directed or helped make several documentaries. In 1936, he assisted Jean Renoir, a famous director, on a few films.

Some of the films he directed or helped with include:

• 1937: Victoire de la vie. A documentary about hospitals in Spain during the civil war. It is 49 minutes long and in black and white.
• 1938: L’Espagne Vivra. A documentary about the Spanish Civil War and the time after the war. It is 43 minutes and 32 seconds long and in black and white.
• 1938: Avec la brigade Abraham Lincoln en Espagne. A 21-minute documentary in black and white made with Herbert Kline.
• 1944–45: Le Retour. A documentary about prisoners of war. It is 32 minutes and 37 seconds long and in black and white.
• 1969–70: Impressions of California. A 23-minute color film.
• 1969–70: Southern Exposures. A 22-minute color film.

Other films used his photographs, such as:

• 1956: A Travers le Monde avec Henri Cartier-Bresson. Directed by Jean-Marie Drot and Cartier-Bresson. It is 21 minutes long and in black and white.
• 1963: Midlands at Play and at Work. A 19-minute black-and-white film made for ABC Television in London.
• 1967: Flagrants délits. Directed by Robert Delpire with music by Diego Masson. It is 22 minutes long and in black and white.
• 1969: Québec vu par Cartier-Bresson / Le Québec as seen by Cartier-Bresson. Directed by Wolff Kœnig and made by the Canadian Film Board. It is 10 minutes long and in black and white.

Some films were made about Cartier-Bresson, including:

• Henri Cartier-Bresson, point d'interrogation by Sarah Moon, shown in 1994.
• Henri Cartier-Bresson: L'amour Tout Court (70 minutes, 2001) with interviews from Cartier-Bresson.
• Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye (72 minutes, 2006) with late interviews from Cartier-Bresson.

Exhibitions

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work has been shown around the world in many exhibitions. Some of his first shows were at the Cercle Ateneo in Madrid and the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1933. Over the years, his photographs have appeared in famous museums and galleries in cities like New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Mexico City, and many more.

His exhibitions have continued for many years, with major retrospectives held in places such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Grand Palais in Paris, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. In recent years, his work has been celebrated in shows like "Les Européens" at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris.

Public collections

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photographs are kept in many famous places around the world. You can see his work at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, France, the De Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, and the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson, also in Paris, France. Other museums that have his photos include the University of Fine Arts in Osaka, Japan, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, United Kingdom, and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, France.

More places with his work are the Musée Carnavalet in Paris, France, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the The Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois, US, Jeu de Paume in Paris, France, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Institute for Contemporary Photography in New York City. You can also find his photographs at The Philadelphia Art Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, US, Kahitsukan Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art in Kyoto, Japan, and the Museum of Modern Art in Tel Aviv, Israel. Additional locations include Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden, and the International Photography Hall of Fame in St. Louis, Missouri.

Awards

Henri Cartier-Bresson received many awards for his work. Some of the notable ones include the Overseas Press Club of America Award in 1948, 1954, 1960, and 1964, the A.S.M.P. Award in 1953, the Prix de la Société française de photographie in 1959, the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 1964, the Cultural Award from the German Society for Photography in 1967 with Edwin H. Land, the Grand Prix National de la Photographie in 1981, the Hasselblad Award in 1982, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Lucie Awards in 2003, and the Prix Nadar in 2006 for his photobook Henri Cartier-Bresson: Scrapbook.