Henri Cartier-Bresson Photographe

“I turn around the subject like the referee in a boxing match. We are passive in front of a moving world and our only moment of creation is the 1/25th of a second when the button is pressed, the moment of tilt when the knife falls.”
Henri Cartier-Bresson

In the late 1970s, Henri Cartier-Bresson and his publisher Robert Delpire decided to produce a book that would cover his entire career under the title Henri Cartier-Bresson Photographe.
Since its first publication more than forty years ago, this book has been translated into seven languages, republished eleven times and is considered as the essential reference of the master.
Through this collection of 155 images taken between 1926 and 1978, the man who has often been called “the eye of the century” presents us with his intimate vision of a world whose landscapes he traveled through, whose actors he met – artists, writers, anonymous people – and whose major historical events he immortalized.

Cartier-Bresson considered his camera as an extension of his eye, which underscored his unparalleled talent for spontaneously composing an image capable of evoking the mystery, humor and universality of the people and moments captured by his lens.
Some of his photographs, such as “Près de la Gare Saint-Lazare”, have become icons, studied in high schools, and are considered masterpieces of 20th century art.

With a preface by the writer and poet Yves Bonnefoy.

“His whole being carries him instinctively as far away from himself and his daydreams as possible, in contact with others, with the most diverse places and things, in search of the surprise that sets off center, the wonder that delivers.”
Yves Bonnefoy