Edited by Peter Galassi
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) is one of the most influential and beloved figures in the history of photography. Published to accompany an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, this is the first major publication to make full use of the extensive holdings of the Fondation Cartier-Bresson—including thousands of prints and a vast resource of documents relating to the photographer's life and work. The heart of the book surveys Cartier-Bresson's career through 300 photographs divided into 12 chapters. While many of his most famous pictures are included, a great number of images will be unfamiliar even to specialists. A wide-ranging essay by Peter Galassi, former Chief Curator of Photography at the Museum, offers an entirely new understanding of Cartier-Bresson's extraordinary career and its overlapping contexts of journalism and art. The extensive supporting material—featuring detailed chronologies of the photographer's professional travels and of spreads of his picture stories as they appeared in magazines—will revolutionize the study of Cartier-Bresson's work. 376 pp.; 462 illus.