Henri Cartier-BressonOmaha Beach, US Cemetery, Normandy, France1968
1968
About the Item
- Creator:Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 - 2004, French)
- Creation Year:1968
- Dimensions:Height: 12 in (30.48 cm)Width: 16 in (40.64 cm)
- Medium:
- Period:
- Framing:Framing Options Available
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Tulsa, OK
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2138210965532
Henri Cartier-Bresson
The late photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson spent his long and varied career traveling the world and capturing images of everyone from children to cultural icons.
Beautiful but unsentimental street photography of children was one of the surprises offered by the sweeping survey “The World of Henri Cartier-Bresson,” at Peter Fetterman Gallery, in Santa Monica, California, in 2021. Some of the images are iconic, like Cartier-Bresson’s historic 1950s photographs for Life magazine of a newly Communist China and his portraits of cultural lions like Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti and Samuel Beckett. But nearly half the images, Fetterman said, were printed specifically at the gallery’s request and had not been widely exhibited or published.
One of the most striking discoveries was a 1954 image of five Russian girls standing in second position at a wrought-iron-and-wood ballet barre. The coolly elegant blond girl closest to the camera looks no more than 10 or 12 years old, but her calf muscles are as defined as those of an adult track star. “Rue Mouffetard, Paris,” from 1954, captures a boy grinning from ear to ear as he walks along a city street toward the lens — and presumably toward home — carrying with chin jutted out and visible pride a wine bottle under each arm. This picture, in which all elements conspire to highlight the boy’s swagger (notice the girls noticing the boy), is an illustration of capturing “the decisive moment,” which Cartier-Bresson famously defined and which modernists took as the ultimate goal of photography, although others later were more skeptical.
Born in 1908 in Chanteloup-en-Brie, France, the oldest of five children, Cartier-Bresson studied art and literature in school, refusing to join his father’s prosperous textile business. In 1931, he traveled to Africa to hunt wild game and found that he preferred a different kind of shoot: taking pictures with a small box camera.
On his return to France, Cartier-Bresson bought a Leica with a 50mm lens — the camera he called the “extension of my eye” and used for decades. He soon began working as a photojournalist, traveling the globe to capture everyday moments as well as some of the defining political events of the 20th century, from Gandhi’s funeral in 1948 and the fall of the Kuomintang in China in 1949 to the student uprising in Paris in 1968.
Cartier-Bresson was himself caught up in conflict. A French army officer during World War II, he was detained as a prisoner of war by the Nazis, prompting rumors he’d been killed. His photography was taken seriously enough at this time that the Museum of Modern Art in New York began preparing what it believed would be a posthumous retrospective of his work. The show took place in 1947, when the photographer was abundantly alive and well, and busy cofounding the great photo agency Magnum. MoMA has been a guardian and champion of his work ever since.
Find original Henri Cartier-Bresson black-and-white photography on 1stDibs.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Tulsa, OK
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 14 days of delivery.
- Untitled from “Women Are Beautiful”By Garry WinograndLocated in Tulsa, OKGarry Winogrand Untitled from “Women Are Beautiful”, c. 1970, printed 1981 Signed in pencil on verso; numbered in unknown hand in pencil on verso G...Category
Mid-20th Century Black and White Photography
MaterialsSilver Gelatin
- After Labor Day, Orchard Beach, Bronx, New YorkBy Louis StettnerLocated in Tulsa, OKLouis Stettner After Labor Day, Orchard Beach, Bronx, New York, 1969 Signed and dated in pencil on sheet verso Gelatin silver print 16 x 20"Category
Mid-20th Century Black and White Photography
MaterialsSilver Gelatin
- First Lesson at Truempy Ballet School, BerlinBy Alfred Eisenstaedt 1Located in Tulsa, OKAlfred Eisenstaedt First Lesson at Truempy Ballet School, Berlin, 1930, printed later Signed in ink on sheet recto. Photographer's stamp on sheet verso G...Category
Mid-20th Century Black and White Photography
MaterialsSilver Gelatin
- Couple Along the QuaiBy Louis StettnerLocated in Tulsa, OKLouis Stettner Couple Along the Quai, 1950 Signed in pencil on verso Gelatin silver print 16 x 20"Category
Mid-20th Century Black and White Photography
MaterialsSilver Gelatin
- Brussels, BelgiumBy Henri Cartier-BressonLocated in Tulsa, OKSigned in ink in lower right sheet recto Printed laterCategory
Mid-20th Century Black and White Photography
MaterialsSilver Gelatin
- Palazzo dell/arte, Milan, ItalyBy Charles HarbuttLocated in Tulsa, OKCharles Harbutt Palazzo dell/arte, Milan, Italy, 1970, printed 1970 Signed, titled and dated in pencil on verso Vintage gelatin silver print 11 x 14"Category
Mid-20th Century Black and White Photography
MaterialsSilver Gelatin
- "Beauty at the Window" Black & White Photography Signed, Gelatin Silver PrintBy Ana Maria CortesãoLocated in Coimbra, PTStreet Photography /2000. Portugal / Analog camera photo / B&W 35 mm film. 400 iso / Gelatin Silver Print Signed, titled, negative date & print date on verso. Ana Maria is visual ar...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Black and White Photography
MaterialsPhotographic Film, Black and White, Silver Gelatin
- "Three of a Kind" Black & White Photography Gelatin Silver Print Portugal 2000By Ana Maria CortesãoLocated in Coimbra, PTStreet Photography /2001. Portugal / Analog camera photo / B&W 35 mm film. 400 iso / Gelatin Silver Print. Signed, titled, negative date & print date on verso. Ana Maria is visual a...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Black and White Photography
MaterialsPhotographic Film, Black and White, Silver Gelatin
- Harbor, Black & White Photography, Gelatin Silver Print, Signed, Portugal 2000By Ana Maria CortesãoLocated in Coimbra, PTStreet Photography /2000. Portugal / Analog camera photo / B&W 35 mm film. 400 iso / Gelatin Silver Print Signed, titled, negative date & print date on verso. Ana Maria is visual ar...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Black and White Photography
MaterialsPhotographic Film, Black and White, Silver Gelatin
- "Three of a Kind" Black & White Photography Gelatin Silver Print Portugal 2000By Ana Maria CortesãoLocated in Coimbra, PTStreet Photography /2001. Portugal / Analog camera photo / B&W 35 mm film. 400 iso / Gelatin Silver Print. Signed, titled, negative date & print date on verso. Unframed. Ana Maria is visual artist. She had a formal education in Fine Arts. Since 2000 she also is interested in photography and she started by doing theater photography...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Black and White Photography
MaterialsPhotographic Film, Black and White, Silver Gelatin
- River Jumping - Portugal 2000 - Gelatin Silver Print - SignedBy Ana Maria CortesãoLocated in Coimbra, PTStreet Photography /2000. Portugal / Analog camera photo / B&W 35 mm film. 400 iso / Gelatin Silver Print, Signed, titled, negative date & print date on verso. Ana Maria is visual ...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Black and White Photography
MaterialsPhotographic Film, Black and White, Silver Gelatin
- Highway, Portugal 2003 /Gelatin Silver Print/ SignedBy Ana Maria CortesãoLocated in Coimbra, PTStreet Photography /2003. Portugal / Analog camera photo / B&W 35 mm film. 400 iso / Gelatin Silver Print Signed, titled, negative date & p...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Black and White Photography
MaterialsPhotographic Film, Black and White, Silver Gelatin