From the artist to the Museum of Modern Art, New York
Time LIFE Archive, New York
Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York
To the present owner
The Photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 4 February - 6 April 1947
For another print
'Speaking of Pictures: Cartier-Bresson Displays Eloquent Work', LIFE, 3 March 1947, p. 15, for the present lot
Henri Cartier-Bresson, New York: Aperture Foundation, 1987, p. 39
J. Clair, Henri Cartier-Bresson: Europeans, London: Thames & Hudson, 1998, p. 23
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, Reykjavik: Reykjavik Museum of Art, 2001, p. 16
M. Marien, Photography: A Cultural History, London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., 2002, p. 263
P. Galassi et al., Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image and the World, London: Thames & Hudson, 2003, pl. 45
Henri Cartier-Bresson: Scrapbook, Photographs 1932-1946, London: Thames & Hudson, 2006, pp. 86-87, uncropped variant
P. Galassi, Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010, pl. 20a
C. Chéroux, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Here and Now, London: Thames & Hudson, 2014, pl. 63
French • 1908 - 2004
Candidly capturing fleeting moments of beauty among the seemingly ordinary happenings of daily life, Henri Cartier-Bresson's work is intuitive and observational. Initially influenced by the Surrealists' "aimless walks of discovery," he began shooting on his Leica while traveling through Europe in 1932, revealing the hidden drama and idiosyncrasy in the everyday and mundane. The hand-held Leica allowed him ease of movement while attracting minimal notice as he wandered in foreign lands, taking images that matched his bohemian spontaneity with his painterly sense of composition.
Cartier-Bresson did not plan or arrange his photographs. His practice was to release the shutter at the moment his instincts told him the scene before him was in perfect balance. This he later famously titled "the decisive moment" — a concept that would influence photographers throughout the twentieth century.
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