Henri Cartier-Bresson: Aperture Masters of Photography

With this publication Aperture presents an elegantly updated and refreshed edition of the classic Henri Cartier-Bresson volume in The Aperture Masters of Photography series. With an introduction by notable curator Clément Chéroux, this edition includes new, image-by-image commentary and a chronology of this influential and iconic artist's life. Initially presented as The History of Photography series in 1976, the first volume of The Masters of Photography series featured Cartier-Bresson and was edited by legendary French publisher Robert Delpire, who cofounded the series with Aperture's own Michael Hoffman. This redesigned and expanded version honors the selection of images from the original series, which Cartier-Bresson himself created with Delpire, encapsulating the spontaneity and intuition for which this legendary photographer is so celebrated.

Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 96
Publication date: 2015-07-28
Measurements: 8.3 x 8.2 x 0.6 inches
ISBN: 9781597112871

Henri Cartier-Bresson was born in France in 1908. He studied painting and then began to photograph in the early 1930s. After escaping from prison camp in 1943, he made portraits of artists, covered the liberation of Paris and filmed a documentary on the return of war prisoners. In 1947, the year he had his first show at MoMA, he also founded Magnum Photos with Robert Capa, George Rodger and David Seymour. Not long after, he began in earnest the life of a traveling photographer, working in India, Burma, Pakistan, Indonesia, China, Japan, Mexico and Cuba. His first, defining book “The Decisive Moment” was published by Teriade in 1952. By the late 60s, he had almost ceased making reportage to re-embrace his first passion, drawing. Cartier-Bresson created his Foundation in Paris in 2003, and passed away in 2004.
Henri Cartier-Bresson was born in France in 1908. He studied painting and then began to photograph in the early 1930s. After escaping from prison camp in 1943, he made portraits of artists, covered the liberation of Paris and filmed a documentary on the return of war prisoners. In 1947, the year he had his first show at MoMA, he also founded Magnum Photos with Robert Capa, George Rodger and David Seymour. Not long after, he began in earnest the life of a traveling photographer, working in India, Burma, Pakistan, Indonesia, China, Japan, Mexico and Cuba. His first, defining book “The Decisive Moment” was published by Teriade in 1952. By the late 60s, he had almost ceased making reportage to re-embrace his first passion, drawing. Cartier-Bresson created his Foundation in Paris in 2003, and passed away in 2004.
Clément Chéroux is a photography historian and has been the curator of the photography collection at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, since 2007. He has curated and cocurated numerous photographic exhibitions, including Mémoire des camps: photographies des camps de concentration et d’extermination nazis, 1933–1999, Hôtel de Sully, Paris, 2001; and Le troisième oeil: La photographie et l’occulte (The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult), at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, 2004, and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005. He is the editor of the journal Études photographiques.