Henri Cartier-Bresson Scrapbook

Henri Cartier-Bresson was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1940. After two unsuccessful attempts, he managed to escape in February 1943. Meanwhile, the people in charge of the MoMA in New York, thinking that the photographer had disappeared, began to prepare a “posthumous” exhibition of his work. When he reappeared, he was delighted to learn that the exhibition would still take place. HCB decided to review his entire body of work and choose everything that “fit” himself. He selected and printed more than 300 often unpublished images, then left for New York in April 1946, with the prints in his suitcase. Upon his arrival, he bought a large album – a “scrap book” – in which he pasted all his images in order to show them at MoMA. The exhibition opened on February 4, 1947, just before Magnum was founded.

In the 1990’s, Henri Cartier-Bresson returned to his scrap book and removed most of the prints to protect them. The HCB Foundation, now the owner of the collection, has completed the restoration that allows the publication of these exceptional unpublished images.

A co-publication with the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation