Henri Cartier-Bresson photographer - Beau Livre

Henri Cartier-Bresson - Photographer, first published in 1979, is an essential book on this master of twentieth-century photography. Reproduced in beautiful duotone, the images range from Cartier-Bresson's earliest work in France, Spain and Mexico through his post-war travels in Asia, the United States and Russia, and even include landscapes from the 1970s, when he retired his camera to pursue drawing.
While his instinct for capturing what he called the "decisive moment" was unparalleled, as a photojournalist Cartier-Bresson was uniquely concerned with the human impact of historic occasions. In his photographs of the liberation of France from the Nazis, the death of Gandhi and the creation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Cartier-Bresson focused on the reactions of the crowds rather than the subjects of the events.
And while his portraits of Sartre, Giacometti, Faulkner, Capote and other artists are iconic, he gave equal attention to those forgotten by history : a dead resistance fighter lying on the bank of the Rhine, children playing alongside the Berlin Wall and a eunuch in Beijing's Imperial Court. Accompanied by an insightful preface by the late French art historian and poet Yves Bonnefoy and divided into six thematic sections, this classic volume presents Cartier-Bresson's photographs in beautiful double-page spreads with brief captions.
Selected by the photographer himself, these profound images show how Cartier-Bresson was able to capture the decisive moment with extreme humility and profound humanity.