Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson (August 22, 1908 – August 3 2004) was a French photographer. He was commonly considered the undisputed master of candid photography using the small-format 35mm rangefinder camera.

The middle years

Henri came to America for the first time in 1935. He was invited to exhibit his work at New York's Julien Levy Gallery (where he shared display space with Walker Evans). He was approached by Carmel Snow of Harper's Bazaar, who gave him an assignment to do fashion photography. He fared poorly at this assignment for he had no idea how to interact and direct the models. Nevertheless, Snow was the first American editor to publish his photographs in a magazine. While in New York, he met photographer Paul Strand, who did cinematographic work on the Depression-era documentary, The Plow That Broke the Plains. When he returned to France, Henri applied for a job with renowned French film director Jean Renoir. He worked as an actor in Renoir's 1936 film Un Parti de Campagne (A Day in the Country), also in the 1939 La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game, Henri plays a butler.). He was second assistant in La Règle du Jeu. Renoir made him act, so he could understand what it felt like on the other side of the camera. Henri also helped Renoir do a film for the Communist party on the 200 families who ran France including his own! During the Spanish civil war, he co-directed an anti-fascist film with Herbert Kline. This film promoted the Republican medical services.

Related Topics:
Julien Levy Gallery - Walker Evans - Harper's Bazaar - Paul Strand - Jean Renoir - Spanish civil war - Herbert Kline

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Henri was first published as a photojournalist in 1937 when he was assigned to cover the coronation of King George VI, for the French weekly Regards. He focused on the new monarch's adoring subjects lining the London streets, and took no pictures of the king. The accompanying credit for his photographs published in Regards, read "Cartier". He was hesitant about using his full family name.

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In 1937, Henri married Javanese dancer, Ratna Mohini. They had set up their home in a fourth-floor servants' flat at 19, Rue Danielle Casanova. It was a large studio with a small bedroom and kitchen and a bathroom where Henri once developed his films. Between 1937 and 1939 Henri was the photographer for the French Communist's evening paper, Ce Soir. Henri (along with Chim and Capa) was a leftist, but he did not join the French Communist party. Henri joined the French Army as a Corporal in the Film and Photo unit when World War II broke out in September 1939. During the Battle of France, in June 1940 at St. Dié in the Vosges Mountains and spent 35 months in prisoner-of-war camps and worked as a forced laborer under the Nazis. According to Henri, he was forced to perform "thirty-two different kinds of hard manual labor." He worked "as slowly and as poorly as possible." He tried to escape twice from the prison camp and failed both times. He was punished by solitary confinement. His third escape was successful. He hid on a farm in Touraine before getting false papers that allowed him to travel in France. He worked for the Underground, aiding other escapees and working secretly with other photographers to cover the Occupation and then, the Liberation of France. In 1943, he dug up his beloved Leica camera, which he had buried in farmland near Vosges in 1940. He continued photographing throughout World War II, working with the underground photographic unit recording the Nazi occupation and the liberation. In 1944-45 (by the time of the armistice), he was asked by the American Office of War Information to make a documentary, Le Retour (The Return) about returning French prisoners and displaced persons.

Related Topics:
Ratna Mohini - Ce Soir - World War II - Battle of France - Touraine - Vosges

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Towards the end of the War, rumors had reached America that Henri had been killed. Henri's film on returning war refugees, (released in the United States in 1947) spurred a retrospective of his work at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The MoMA had begun to prepare a "posthumous" show for him. In 1946 when they learned that Henri was still alive, he volunteered to go to New York to help with the preparation of this exhibition. The show made its debut in 1947. Together with this show, the MoMA also published the first book of his work, The Photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson, with texts by Lincoln Kirstein and Beaumont Newhall.

Related Topics:
Museum of Modern Art - Lincoln Kirstein - Beaumont Newhall

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The formation of Magnum

In the spring of 1947, Henri, along with Robert Capa, David "Chim" Seymour, Bill Vandivert, George Rodger became founders of Magnum Photo. Magnum was the brainchild of Robert Capa. Magnum Photo was to be a cooperative picture agency. The team had decided to split up photo assignments among the members. Rodger, who had quit Life Magazine in London after covering the World War II, would cover Africa and the Middle East. Chim, who spoke most European languages, would work in Europe. Henri would be assigned to India and China. Vandivert, who had also left Life Magazine, would work in America, and Capa would work anywhere that had an assignment. The Paris office was managed by Maria Eisner, formally of Alliance Photo. The New York office was managed by Vandervert's wife, Rita Vandivert. Rita became Magnum's first president. Magnum's purpose was to "feel the pulse" of the times.

Related Topics:
Robert Capa - David "Chim" Seymour - Bill Vandivert - George Rodger - Magnum Photo - Life Magazine - Maria Eisner - Alliance Photo - Rita Vandivert

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Some of Magnum's first projects were People Live Everywhere, Youth of the World, Women of the World and The Child Generation. Magnum aimed to use photography in the service of humanity, giving birth to the conception. Magnum provided some of the most arresting and popular images of this period.

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The Decisive Moment

Henri achieved journalistic recognition for his coverage of Gandhi's death in India in 1948 and the Maoist revolution in China in 1949. He covered the last six months of the Kuomintang administration and the first six months of the incoming Maoist government (the People's Republic). He also photographed the last surviving Imperial eunuchs in Beijing as the city was falling to the communists. From China, he continued on to Indonesia where he documented the independency of the country from the Dutch.

Related Topics:
Gandhi's - Kuomintang - Beijing - Indonesia

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In 1952 he published his book, The Decisive Moment. The book featured a portfolio of 126 photos from the East and the West. It also featured a book cover drawn by Henri Matisse. Henri's 4,500-word philosophical preface was where the term Decisive Moment was born. He first wrote it in French, taking his text from the 17th-century Cardinal de Retz: "Il n'y a rien dans ce monde qui n'ait un moment decisif." This translates to "There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment." Henri applied this to his photography style. Henri said: "To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression." Tériade, the Greek-born French publisher whom Henri idolized, gave the book its French title, Images à la sauvette, which could be loosely translated as "Shooting on the run." American publisher, Dick Simon of Simon & Schuster came up with the English title, The Decisive Moment. Margot Shore, Magnum's Paris bureau chief did the English translation of Henri's preface.

Related Topics:
Henri Matisse - Cardinal de Retz - Tériade - Dick Simon - Simon & Schuster

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"Photography is not like painting," he told The Washington Post in 1957. "There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera." "That is the moment the photographer is creative," he said. "Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."

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Henri held his first exhibition in France at the Pavillon de Marsan in the Louvre Museum in 1955.

Related Topics:
Pavillon de Marsan - Louvre Museum

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