Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004)

• (äNrē´ kärtēā´-brĕsôN)

• Born in France in 1908

• Considered the father of modern photojournalism

• Most famous book was “The Decisive Moment,” published in 1952– Cover drawn by Matisse

• Co-founded Magnum photo agency in 1947 with group of other photographers

• Shot for Life and other prominent magazines

Photo of Fidel Castro for Life cover.

Henri Cartier-Bresson seen in 1972 in Forcalquier, the Alpes de Haute-Provence, France, Photy by Martine Franck

The Decisive Moment

• The simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression.

– Henry Cartier Bresson

Henri Cartier-BressonBehind the Gare St. Lazare, 1932

London, 1938. The people had waited all night at Trafalgar Square in order not to miss any part of the coronation ceremony of George VI. Some sat on benches and on newspapers. The next morning, one wearier than the others had not yet wakened to see the ceremony for which he had kept such a late vigil.

London, 1938. Waiting in Trafalgar Square for the coronation parade of King George VI.

HENRI CARTIER - BRESSON (A family picnic by the River Marne), France 1938

HENRI CARTIER - BRESSON, (Madrid, Spain), 1933

Hasidic Jews in Jerusalem Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1967

The "boy with the bottles" in Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1954. / Henri Cartier-Bresson

Dessau, Germany, 1945. In a camp of displaced persons waiting for repatriation, a Gestapo informer who had pretended to be a refugee is discovered and exposed by a camp inmate whose face is illuminated by the strong, sharp light of rage.

Queen Charlotte's Ball, London, 1959. / Henri Cartier-Bresson

Brie, France, 1968. / Henri Cartier-Bresson

Barrio chino, Barcelona, 1933. The narrow street of Barcelona’s roughest quarter is the home of prostitutes, petty thieves and dope peddlers. But I saw a fruit vendor sleeping against a wall in the narrow street and was struck by the surprisingly gentle and articulate drawing scrawled there.

- Henri Cartier-Bresson, The Decisive Moment

Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues, 1933

Seville, Spain, 1933

Blurred bike. Henri Cartier - Bresson, (Hyères), France 1932

Henri Cartier-Bresson, (Siphnos), Greece 1961

Brussels, 1932

During the last days of the Kuomintang supremacy, the currency was failing and the government put gold on the market. People rushed to all the banks in the city and pushed and crowded those who had got there before them. Seven people died in the crushing of the crowds. Shanghai, 1948

John Houston, 1946. / Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Carier-Bresson, (Henri Matisse), Vence, France, 1944

Georg Eisler, 1993

Truman Capote in New Orleans, 1947

Martin Luther King, 1961

Prostitutes in Mexico City, 1934

Robert Oppenheimer, 1958

Andre Pieyre de Mandiarques, 1991

Rumania, 1975.

West Point cadets and their admiring young ladies attend the Army vs. Notre Dame game. New York, 1947

A mother waited, and searched the faces of hundreds of disembarking refugees -- and finally found the son she had not seen throughout the war. New York, 1946.

In the late summer the unemployed fill the benches of the square with their old hats on, their collars close around their necks as though they sense the beginning of autumn and the coming of winter. They read the want ads, the sports pages, the illustrated magazines -- and resassure themselves, perhaps, that there is some comfort, some hope, in reality.

Cape Cod, Mass., 1947. It was the Fourth of July and this woman explained to me that the flagpole over her door was broken but, “on such a day as this, one keeps one’s flag over one’s heart.”

A peasant funeral. According to custom, the priest who officiates at the entire ceremony leaves the group halfway to the burial ground. Only the bearers and mourners accompany the body up the hillside. Lucania, Southern Italy, 1952

There is an idleness and despair where people are gathered without homes. At Kurukshetra camp they were given simple gymnastics to distract them, to work off their energies. Punjab, India, 1947

Moslem women on the slopes of Hari Parbal Hill in Srinagar, pray toward the sun rising behind the Himalayas. Kashmir, 1948

The second Maharajah of Baroda in her palace. The diamonds once belonged to Napoleon. Baroda, India, 1948

On the thirty-ninth birthday of his Highness the Maharajah of Baroda, sugar balls are distributed to the poor. Baroda, India, 1948

Peasants at a cotton market. Jaipur, India, 1948

Moslem working women. Jaipur, India, 1948

The Death House, a hotel to which people retire when they feel they are going to die. Downstairs a funeral ceremony is being performed which arouses the curiosity of passers-by. Singapore, 1940

A Taoist priest performing funeral music in the Death House. It is felt most important that there be a proper tribute for death. People who feel it coming come here to wait for it, ceremonies for funerals take place downstairs, and upstairs in dormitories lie the waiting ones.

Upstairs in The Death House the various inmates patiently wait for their turn to die. Some of them have been there for as long as two years. Singapore, 1949

The last fast of Gandhi. He lies there while members of the crowd pass him in silence in a serious flow, touch hands together in signs of respect. Delhi, 1948

The first flame of Gandhi’s funeral pyre. His secretary looks into the flames; his doctor holds up his hands hoping to quiet the crowd; but as the pyre burned brighter, the people seemed to be on fire too -- and they surged forward in a great crushing movement, throwing themselves toward the pyre. Delhi, 1948

Crowds lined the railroad tracks for an opportunity of paying homage to Gandhi.