Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image & the World: A Retrospective [Hardcover]

Henri Cartier-Bresson (Author), Robert Delpire (Author), Peter Galassi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2003

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 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, a significant number 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 last century.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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 & 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

From Publishers Weekly

Cartier-Bresson's photos of everyday scenes were apparently bothersome to an audience accustomed to the abstract work of Steiglitz and Strand. But his snapshots were a new and powerful way of documenting the world: an astrologer in 1947 Bombay; a 1967 control room at Cape Kennedy, Fla.; a 1954 "sports gala" in Moscow. He "improvised, incorporating the effects of chance and accident as he went along," writes Philippe Arba‹zar of the BibliothŠque Nationale de France in an essay called "The Public Eye: Shows and Exhibitions." Saul Steinberg even made him a fake diploma authorizing Cartier-Bresson to become a photographer, as if his work needed legitimacy. With quotes from MoliŠre, Virgil, Verlaine ("Memory, memory, what do you want of me?") punctuating the chapters, and more than 600 of Cartier-Bresson's photographs and even drawings, films and books, this is indeed a comprehensive and stunning retrospective, carefully printed and showing the huge oeuvre's variations. Complemented by essays by Peter Galassi of MoMA and Serge Toubiana of Cahiers du Cin‚ma, among others, the book coincides with the opening of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation in Paris, as well as the photographer's 95th birthday.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Thames & Hudson (April 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0500542678
• ISBN-13: 978-0500542675
• Product Dimensions: 11.5 x 10.6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,191,869 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential for every photographer's collection, June 8, 2003

By 

B. D. Colen (Brookline, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image & the World: A Retrospective (Hardcover)

"Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image and the World: A Retrospective by Peter Galassi, Robert Delpire" is an essential purchase for anyone with more than a passing interest in photography.

As the images and essays in this retrospective of HCB's work make clear, Cartier-Bresson invented 35 mm photography as a visual form. What studying, or even browsing through this massive collection makes clear is that despite being known as a "photographer," Cartier-Bresson is not being disengeuous when he eschews that descriptive: he is not a photographer; he is an artist whose primary tool for about 50 years was a camera. But he wasn't "taking pictures," he was creating art, and happened to use a camera to do it.

A careful examination of this collection of images leaves one with the impression is that the reason HCB has had such an enormous impact on the history of photography in many different forms - including "street photography," "photojournalism," and "documentary photography," is the fact that he is one of the great artists of the 20th century.

Even if you think you know all Cartier-Bresson's work; even if you own all the books in which most of these photos originally appeared over the past 50 years, "Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image and the World: A Retrospective" is a book worth owning because of the overview it provides, and because of the insightfulness of several of the essays included.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Tribute, August 12, 2004

By 

D. A Wend (Arlington Heights, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image & the World: A Retrospective (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful book. I can think of no better volume about the life work of a photographer that this one of Henri Cartier-Bresson. The book has 602 illustrations consisting of M. Bresson's photographs, his paintings and drawings and family photographs. The family photographs are among the most interesting since we have collected, in one volume, probably all of the photographs taken of the photographer (including an interesting seated portrait of M. Bresson as a prisoner of war). There are some excellent essays by the editors about the photographer and the formulation of the "decisive moment" and his work but the photographs are allowed to speak for themselves.

The photographs are placed in the order M. Bresson published them. Each section of photographs is preceded by a quote that has a bearing on the pictures and a small picture of the cover of the original book is included with the photographs. Each picture is simply captioned with the place or circumstance and the year it was taken. Many of the images are famous and there are also many discoveries that will enthrall the view. The photographs are reproduces in different sizes and some are smaller than I would like but the overwhelming majority are nicely laid out and grouped. There are excellent appendices that give publication information on M. Bresson's photographs and a timeline of his life.

In short, this is a marvelous book that anyone interested in photography must have. The comment by another reviewer concerning the size of the volume was no problem for me: my bookshelves can accommodate any size of book. But even if I had no space on my shelves, I would make room for this volume.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A velvet hand, a hawk's eye...", March 24, 2005

By 

Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image & the World: A Retrospective (Hardcover)

Henri Cartier-Bresson, a man who elevated photography to an art form, is known for successfully capturing "decisive," but elusive, moments on film - photographs taken at the instant when "visual harmony and human significance coalesce." His famous photograph of a man jumping over a puddle ("Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, 1932") illustrates this concept perfectly. Perhaps Cartier-Bresson's unique gift for combining the plastic arts with the images he saw through the camera's lens was acquired through his early training as a painter in his native France.

A renowned photojournalist, he began his career in 1931 and purchased his first Leica in 1932. He was one of the first to shoot in the 35 mm format, and was an innovator of the "street photography" which was to influence generations of photographers. During his decades long career he worked all over the world and photographed such luminaries as Matisse, Picasso, Coco Chanel, Truman Capote, and Gandhi. His interest in the visual arts also extended to cinema - he made films with Jean Renoir, Jacques Becker and André Zvoboda and a documentary on Republican Spain (1937). In 1947 Cartier-Bresson co-founded the photographic cooperative Magnum along with fellow photographers Robert Capa, George Rodger, David Seymour and Bill Vandivert.

Cartier-Bresson retired from photography in 1973 to return to painting, and his first love, drawing. He once said in an interview, "Photography is a sketchbook. Drawing is meditation."

Henri Cartier-Bresson died on August 3, 2004 in Paris. He left behind a photographic record of the world, mid-20th century. He will probably be best remembered, however, as an artist who had tremendous insight into ordinary people and the extraordinary ability to capture fleeting emotion on their faces. Some of his best photographs, I think, include: girls in Bali preparing to dance; a prisoner thrusting a fist and leg out of his cell door; children peeping over the Berlin Wall - in fact, all his spontaneous pictures of children; old priests awaiting midnight Mass in Italy; the funeral of an old Kabuki actor, a captivating portrait of Henri Matisse; lovers kissing at a Paris cafe; and exquisite landscapes and cityscapes, worldwide.

"Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image and the World: A Retrospective" was published in honor of the artist's 95th birthday. An enormous selection of photographs is offered here, more than 600 reproductions, film stills, paintings and drawings on fine heavy art paper, taken over a period of fifty years. These images represent the best of his life's work. Fascinating essays by art and photography critics are included in the volume.

Henri Cartier-Bresson once wrote. "A velvet hand, a hawk's eye - these we should all have." This man was blessed with both the hand and the eye. The photographs reproduced here are the result of that gift.
JANA