Inspirational Photographers: Henri Cartier - Bresson

Henri Cartier - Bresson was born in France on August 22nd 1908, and as a boy owned a box brownie which he used to take holiday snaps of his family.

Cartier's early years were spent studying art and he was particularly drawn to the surrealist movement of that time.

In his early twenties  inspired by the Hungarian photojournalist Martin Munkacsi whose photograph Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika caused him to stop painting and take up photography, he is quoted as saying "I suddenly understood that a photograph could fix eternity in an instant".

 Acquiring a Leica Camera with a 50mm lens he took to the streets of Berlin, Brussels, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest and Madrid and had his first exhibition in 1932  at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York.








In the early 1930's he shared a studio with Robert Capa and David Seymour, his first photo journalist images to be published were of the coronation of King George VI in 1937.

When World War II broke out he joined the French Army and became a prisoner of war, attempting to escape and was eventually on his third attempt successful and returned to France where he worked secretly as a photographer for the underground covering the occupation and the liberation of France.

At the end of the war he was asked to make a documentary about returning prisoners of war.

In 1947 along with Robert Capa, David Seymour, William Vandivert and George Rodger, he founded Magnum Photos.

Cartier, assigned to India & China recieved international recognition for his coverage of Ghandi's Funeral in 1948,  and in 1949 covered the last stages of the Chinese Cival War.

In 1966 Cartier withdrew from Magnum to concentrate on portraiture and landscapes and retired from photography in the early 1970's. In his later years he returned to painting and drawing and held his first exhibition of drawings in 1975 at the Carlton Gallery in New York.
In 2003 he created the Henri Cartier - Bresson Foundation with his wife and daughter to preserve his legacy.
He died in France on August 3rd 2004

Images courtesy of: Magnum Photos/Google images
Exerts taken from:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson

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