Henri Cartier-Bresson
The master of candid photography
1960, Self-Portrait Henri Cartier-Bresson
Timeline of the photographer's life:
- 1908 - Born 22 August in Chanteloup, near Paris.
- 1927-28 - Studies painting with Cubist painter and sculptor Andre Lhote.
- 1931 - Takes his first photographs during a year in Ivory Coast.
- 1933 - Exhibits work at the Julien Levy gallery in New York, and later at the Ateneo club in Madrid. Published in the photography magazine Arts et Métiers Graphiques.
- 1934 - Visits Mexico with an ethnographic exhibition.
- 1935 - Takes his first photos of New York and experiments in film with US photographer and cameraman Paul Strand.
- 1937 - Directs documentary films about the Spanish Civil War.
- 1940 - Taken prisoner by the Nazis.
- 1943 - Escapes at his third attempt (in February).
- 1944-45 - As part of a team, photographs the Liberation of Paris. Directs The Return, a documentary on the repatriation of POWs and detainees.
- 1946 - Works on a "posthumous" exhibition in the US, proposed when he was believed to have died in the war.
- 1947 - Co-founds the Magnum photo agency.
- 1948-50 - In the Far East, to cover Gandhi's death in India, the Chinese civil war and Indonesian independence.
- 1952 - Publishes his first book, Images a la sauvette, with a cover by artist Henri Matisse.
- 1955 - First exhibition in France at the Pavillon de Marsan in the Louvre, which subsequently travels all over the world.
- 1966 - Leaves Magnum to concentrate on portraiture and landscapes.
- 1975 - First exhibition of drawings at the Carlton Gallery, New York.
- 1981 - Receives Grand Prix National de la Photographie in Paris.
- 2003 - Inauguration of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation. Honoured with major retrospective exhibition Henri Cartier-Bresson "De qui s'agit-il?" at the Bibliotheque nationale de France.
“As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one’s own originality. It is a way of life.”