Who was Henri Cartier-Bresson?

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a photojournalist, who saw his camera as a sketchbook and a "master of the instant." He saw his camera as representing the most true and simple form of expression.

Born on 22. August 1908 in Chanteloup, Seine-et-Marne, Cartier-Bresson developed a strong interest for Surrealism painting early in his life. However, after discovering a Leica camera on the Ivory Coast, he brought this fascination to photography. Working exclusively in black-and-white, he took little interest in the process itself, as he saw his camera as a creator of an "instant drawing." Cartier-Bresson had quite a tumultuous life, as after holding various exhibitions in Europe and the United States, and even photographing Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, he was captured as a prisoner of war while serving in the French Army. After the war, he made a documentary about his experience which inspired a retrospective of his work at MoMA in New York City.

In early 1947, Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, David Seymour, William Vandivert and George Rodger founded Magnum Photos, a cooperative photography agency that was owned by its members and dedicated to photographing the world around them. Cartier-Bresson went on to cover several major world events such as Gandhi’s funeral and the last stage of the Chinese Civil War. His career took him all over the world and he worked on several journals throughout his life. Ironically, Cartier-Bresson valued his privacy and did not like to be photographed, even holding a paper in front of his face when Oxford University attempted to photograph him after granting him an honorary degree. He passed away on 3. August 2004.