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CARTIER-BRESSON Henri

 

Date of birth: August 22nd 1908, Canteloup, Seine et Marne, France.

Date of death : August 2nd 2004, l'Isle sur la Sorgue, Vaucluse, France.

Practise: photographer.

 

Portrait : 

Story

He first attended the Fénelon School and the lycée Condorcet in Paris, before studying the painting beside Cotenet from 1922 to 1923, and André Lhote from 1927 to 1928.

Then he went to study painting and philosophy at the Cambridge University, in England.

He started his photographer careere in 1931.

After his participation to an ethnographic expedition in Mexico, he worked as freelance photographer.

The galerist Julien Levy offered himl his first personal exhibition in 1932.

In 1935, beside Paul Strand he obtained the knowledge about cinema and then was cameraman assistant of Jacques Becker, André Zvoboda and Jean Renoir. He directed some documentary films about Spain in 1937 

() and was POW by the Germans in the Bade-Wurtemberg in 1940.

 

After his escape in 1943, he joined the MNPGD, a French underground organization. He worked again as an independant photohgrapher after 1945 ().

His pictures were published in many books as "Images à la sauvette", "D'une Chine à l'autre" or "Flagrants délits".

In 1970, he married the photographer Martine Franck. They will have a daughter, Melanie.

He has worked for nearly the biggest international daily and periodic newspapers.

With Robert Capa, David "Chim" Seymour and George Rodger, he founded the Magnum group and has travelled in Burma, India (), Pakistan, China (), Indonesia, Cuba, Mexico, Canada, Japan and ex-USSR.

He worked for the Magnum agency with other photographers of this agency on the shooting of "The Misfits" (1961).

Montgomery Clift :

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Clark Gable :

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John Huston : 

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John Huston, Clark Gable and Arthur Miller : 

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John Huston, Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift : 

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Marilyn :

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Shooting :

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Other :

 

Then he gave up the photography to return to his first passion, the painting and the drawing. Those who regret him haven't probably taken his previous statments seriously : "Finally, the photo in itself doesn't interest me at all. The only thing I want is to retain a split second of reality".

The Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany, owns through the Gruber Donation some of the most famous pictures of Cartier-Bresson.

Pictures of Paris :

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Pictures of famous people : 

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Other picture : 

 

Website

www.henricartierbresson.org

www.magnumarchives.com

    

 

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