Many of Cartier-Bresson’s iconic portraits were taken in France, including that of friend and fellow artist, Alberto Giacometti (lots 13 & 15). Giacometti and Cartier-Bresson were first introduced in 1938 at a café in Place Blanche in Montparnasse, a well-known haunt of the Surrealists who deeply inspired Cartier-Bresson’s pre-war photography. In 1961, after a decades long friendship, Cartier-Bresson turned his lens on Giacometti for the first time, and photographed the sculptor while working on portraits of leading cultural figures for Queen magazine. Martine Franck, Cartier-Bresson’s widow, commented of their friendship, “What Henri admired about Giacometti was his simplicity and rigour as an artist, the way he was always putting himself into question… He could talk about anything with Giacometti—including photography. Henri told me he was the most intelligent man he’d ever met.”