by:
Arbaizar, Philippe
Clair, Jean
Cookman, Claude
Delpire, Robert
Galassi, Peter
Jeanneney, Jean-Noel

Publisher:
Thames and Hudson
Published:April, 2003
ISBN:0500542678
Format:Hardcover
Pages:432

Description: Amazon.com
Henri Cartier-Bresson spent four decades traveling the world as a photojournalist in search of what he called "the decisive moment"--the instant when visual harmony and human significance coalesce. Published in honor of his 95th birthday, Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, The Image and The World is a handsome volume that reproduces more than 600 photographs, film stills, and drawings and includes essays by art, photography, and film experts. Trained as a painter in his native France, Cartier-Bresson began his photography career during a trip to the Ivory Coast in 1931. After shooting his way through Europe, Mexico and the U.S., he became an assistant to filmmaker Jean Renoir and directed documentaries in support of the Spanish Civil War. Imprisoned by the Germans during World War II, he escaped to document the liberation of Paris. More than a quarter-century of magazine photography followed--including vivid glimpses of modern life in India, China and the Soviet Union--before he put aside his camera in favor of his sketchbook. Cartier-Bresson's ability to capture peak moments resulted in unforgettable single photographs, like that of a woman in a group of former concentration camp prisoners who suddenly recognizes her Gestapo informer and reaches out to hit her. His constant watchfulness led to images that capture fleeting emotion--lust, pride, despair, expectation, glee--on the faces of people going about their daily lives in grim cities, sleepy villages, and vast landscapes. Shaped by compassion and a self-effacing absence of personal judgment, these photographs reflect a worldview no longer fashionable but forever relevant to human understanding. -Cathy Curtis

Product Description:
Henri Cartier-Bresson is one of the finest image makers of our time. Born in 1908, he studied painting before embarking on a career in photography in the early 1930s. In 1940 he was captured by the Germans and spent three years in prisoner-of-war camps before escaping to join the Paris underground. With Robert Capa, David Seymour, and others, he founded the photographic agency Magnum in 1947. Since then his work has taken him all over the world-from Europe to India, Burma, Pakistan, China, Japan, Indonesia, Bali, Russia, the Middle East, Cuba, Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

This new collection of work by Cartier-Bresson, created on the occasion of his ninety-fifth birthday, provides the ultimate retrospective look at a lifetime's achievement. It includes the first photographs taken by him, some of which have never been published, rarely seen work from all periods of his life, classic photographs that have become icons of the medium, and a generous selection of drawings, paintings, and film stills. The book also features personal souvenirs of Cartier-Bresson's youth, his family, and the founding of Magnum.

Cartier-Bresson's extraordinary images are shaped by an eye and a mind legendary for their intelligent empathy and for going to the heart of the matter. This definitive collection of a master photographer's work will be an essential book for anyone interested in photography-indeed, for anyone interested in the people, places, and events of the past century. An exhibition of work by Henri Cartier-Bresson opens in Paris in 2003 and will be seen in the United States in 2004-2005. 630 illustrations in color and duotone.