While I was in Paris recently, I visited the Henri Cartier-Bresson Retrospective Exhibition at the Centre Pompidou. Until then I was only familiar with his popular "Decisive Moment" images which is reflective of his work in the early 1930's. The Exhibition, with over 500 photographs, drawings, paintings, films and documents, opened up a whole new world of Cartier-Bresson's photography for me. Brilliantly curated by Clément Chéroux, it covers three main periods 1) from 1926 to 1935 in which he met and was influenced by the Surrealists, 2) 1936 to 1946 he worked with the socialist press and experimented with film, and 3) 1947 to 1970 he co-founded the Magnum Photos co-operative with Robert Capa, David "Chim" Seymour, George Rodger and William Vandivert. The Exhibition reveals his career undergoing different periods of development producing several styles and adding depth and complexity to the interpretation of his photographs. In providing a fully rounded picture of Cartier-Bresson, Chéroux debunks a few myths such as never cropping a frame, never retouching and using only a 50mm lens.
Henri spent three years as a prisoner-of-war during the Second World War before escaping and joining a group of Communist resistance fighters. After the war he travelled extensively around the world, published widely in magazines and made an impression on the public for portraying the daily lives of the local people in the different countries he visited. Recurring themes emerged from his work after 1945 - the death and destruction of war, the relationship between humans and machines, the representation of power in public space, signs of the emerging consumer society, crowds and photographic abstract composition. One of his fascinating methods was to find the right background with interesting elements of composition and wait for someone to randomly populate it.
From 1970, Cartier-Bresson began to distance himself from Magnum and his work became more contemplative and evoked his early pictures. He went back to drawing and supervising the organization of his archives, sales of prints and production of books and exhibitions. He was born in 1908 and died in 2004. The traveling exhibition is on its way to Madrid and then to Rome.
For more info see Le Centre Pompidou and The Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation .
Henri spent three years as a prisoner-of-war during the Second World War before escaping and joining a group of Communist resistance fighters. After the war he travelled extensively around the world, published widely in magazines and made an impression on the public for portraying the daily lives of the local people in the different countries he visited. Recurring themes emerged from his work after 1945 - the death and destruction of war, the relationship between humans and machines, the representation of power in public space, signs of the emerging consumer society, crowds and photographic abstract composition. One of his fascinating methods was to find the right background with interesting elements of composition and wait for someone to randomly populate it.
From 1970, Cartier-Bresson began to distance himself from Magnum and his work became more contemplative and evoked his early pictures. He went back to drawing and supervising the organization of his archives, sales of prints and production of books and exhibitions. He was born in 1908 and died in 2004. The traveling exhibition is on its way to Madrid and then to Rome.
For more info see Le Centre Pompidou and The Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation .
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