Henri Cartier-Bresson; Telegraph obit
Hyfler/Rosner
(Filed: 05/08/2004)
Henri Cartier-Bresson, who died on Monday aged 95, was the
prime mover in the revolution that in the 20th century
transformed photography from a scientific curiosity into a
modern art form.
He largely created the natural, observational style that
came to govern photojournalism, a profession whose
independence of spirit was nurtured in the agency he
co-founded, Magnum.
Of equal importance was his elevation of photography to the
status of art; he himself brought to the medium the eye of a
painter and the temperament of a philosopher.
Cartier-Bresson gave his discipline purpose, and the
resulting images persuaded the world that photography was
not simply the mechanical reproduction of life but a valid
form of self-expression.
Few of the century's most recognisable photographs do not
bear his imprint, so great was his influence and so much did
his pictures shape public perception of a memorable image.
Half a dozen of his photographs will remain benchmarks.
Among them are those of a Parisian boy swaggering home with
two bottles of red wine; of a man slumbering at the foot of
Nelson's Column on Coronation Day, insensible to the crowd
perched above him; of a couple, seen from behind, gazing
down from the Eiffel Tower; and of the astonished fury of a
prisoner recognising the informer who sent her to the
concentration camp.
In each, Cartier-Bresson's camera is no machine but the eye
of someone present, seeking the moments when daily life
reveals itself as special. "In photography, the smallest
thing can be a great subject," he wrote. "The little human
detail can become a leitmotif."
Cartier-Bresson rigidly applied three rules to his work. He
never contrived a photograph, used no artificial light and
never retouched the results. Some found this a counsel of
perfection that left much to chance, but Cartier-Bresson's
skill was to thrive on accident, or at least to recognise a
situation that held the promise of accident. Most of his
pictures were taken on 35 mm rangefinder cameras with an
ordinary 50 mm lens - the kind of equipment owned by many
amateur photographers.
He was much influenced by Zen philosophy, which taught him
to be instinctive and bred in his work a love of geometry
and abstraction (and a hatred of colour film).
Cartier-Bresson liked to compare photography to the loosing
of an arrow, his camera to a sketchbook, and called what
became his most celebrated book The Decisive Moment (1952) -
the essence of a situation captured in a single photograph,
the seizure of "a moment and its eternity".
Henri Cartier-Bresson was born on August 22 1908 at
Chanteloup, near Paris. He was the oldest of the five
children of a rich, well-connected textile manufacturer and
a mother descended from Marat's assassin, Charlotte Corday.
The family firm was famous for its cotton reels.
Henri was educated in Paris at the Ecole Fenelon and the
Lycee Condorcet. As a teenager he mixed with the capital's
avant-garde and surrealists such as Andre Breton, Max Ernst
and Salvador Dali. He remembered that: "I knew only one
thing - that I was strongly appalled by the idea of working
in the family textile business." With his father's approval
and encouragement, he turned instead to painting.
Cartier-Bresson studied under the minor Cubist Andre Lhote,
to whom he later attributed his skill for composition,
although in truth his obsession with perfect form could
sometimes make his photographs seem too painterly,
still-lifes rather than spontaneous sketches. He also spent
some time studying with the portrait painter Emile Blanche.
A period in Cambridge, where he became preoccupied by
English literature as well as painting, provided a further
broadening of his experiences before he returned to France
in 1930 in order to do his military service.
He was stationed at Le Bourget, near Paris, during which
time he toyed with becoming a pilot, and experimented with a
box Brownie. After completing his service, Cartier-Bresson
went to the Ivory Coast in 1931 in search of adventure. At t
he time he was in thrall to surrealism, which prized the
primitive and authentic. He earned his living as a hunter
until he fell seriously ill with blackwater fever; his life
was saved by a witch doctor.
While sick, he sent his grandfather a postcard detailing the
expensive funeral arrangements he wanted; the terse reply
told him to come home to die as it would be cheaper.
Convalescing in Marseilles, Cartier-Bresson began to
experiment with a small, lightweight Leica camera and
discovered that it gave him the same sense of independence
and unity with his environment he had felt hunting in
Africa. He recalled that he "prowled the streets all day,
feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to
'trap' life, to preserve life in the act of living".
Cartier-Bresson would become renowned for his skill at
remaining undetected when photographing; except for
portraits, his subjects are rarely seen looking into the
lens. He would keep the Leica hidden under his coat but tied
to his wrist for instant production, with tape masking the
camera's shiny surfaces. He liked to use rubber jam-jar lids
instead of fiddly lens caps.
Cartier-Bresson began to photograph widely within Europe and
the United States, soon obtaining assignments from magazines
such as Harper's Bazaar. In 1932 he was given his first
exhibition in America by Julien Levy, a friend of Cocteau.
Two years later he accompanied an ethnographic expedition to
Mexico in search of subjects, but its leader soon
disappeared after Cartier-Bresson naively gave him a blank
cheque.
Cartier-Bresson then moved to Paris, where he met two other
young photographers, Robert Capa and Chim (David Seymour),
who like him were much excited by the emergence of the
Popular Front in France.
The three shared a studio, and their efforts to capture the
involvement of people in the political turmoil of the times
marked the birth of modern photojournalism and the
recognition that the camera could be a political instrument.
Cartier-Bresson himself, however, strongly refused the title
of photo-journalist. "Journalism has kept me from going
stale, and through photo assignments I am able to see many
new places, but I am not a journalist. I simply sniff around
and take the temperature of a place." On another occasion he
stated: "Documenting is extremely dull and I'm a very bad
reporter and photojournalist."
In 1936, Cartier-Bresson's developing interest in the cinema
led him to work as assistant director to Jean Renoir on Une
partie de campagne, and three years later on the classic La
Regle du Jeu. The experience tempted him to give up
photography for film, and during the Spanish Civil War his
sympathy for the Republicans led him to direct a documentary
about a hospital, Return to Life.
From film he learnt in particular how to direct the camera
at faces and by 1937 his style was mature. That year he took
notable pictures of George VI's coronation, typically
focusing on the crowd rather than the ceremony.
In 1940, he was taken prisoner while serving in an army film
unit. He spent three years in a camp in Wurttemberg before
escaping at the third attempt, disguised as a funeral
mourner. He was then sheltered by Henri Matisse and Pierre
Bonnard before joining the Resistance to document the German
occupation and France's liberation. His film La Retour
followed French prisoners of war as they returned home in
1945.
In America, he had been reported killed, which led to a
"posthumous" retrospective in New York in 1946. The same
year he founded the Magnum agency with Capa, Chim and the
British photographer George Rodger. The co-operative, the
first of its kind, was set up to give freelance
photographers greater editorial and financial control of
their work.
Its ensuing fame made photo-journalism glamorous and
respectable, mainly due to Capa and Chim's determination to
get close to the action. When both were killed covering
conflicts, Cartier-Bresson resigned from Magnum in 1966,
having been its president for the previous 10 years.
After 1945, he worked extensively for major newspapers and
magazines. He travelled wherever the world was changing,
capturing its impact at human level. He took memorable
photographs of the partition of India and, having been the
last person to interview Gandhi, of the Indian leader's
cremation.
As Mao's forces seized Peking he was on the last flight out;
later he spent five weeks as a prisoner of the Communists.
He became a forceful advocate of the interests of Third
World countries, particularly Indonesia.
Cartier-Bresson published many books of his photographs and
exhibited often. In 1954 he became the first photographer to
be given a show at the Louvre, and in 1998 his 90th birthday
was marked by two exhibitions in London, one of his
photographs and another of his much underrated portraits.
The Victoria and Albert Museum holds part of his archive.
In 1973 Cartier-Bresson largely gave up photography, having
been told by his publisher's editor that he had accomplished
everything possible in the medium. He returned to painting
but the subsequent results were unexceptional.
Cartier-Bresson was rather shy, self-effacing and restless;
inactivity quickly made him grumpy. He prized his anonymity,
living quietly opposite the Louvre and travelling under the
name "Hank Carter". Interviewers were deflected by an alert
wit, though he occasionally unleashed a volcanic temper,
particularly if someone tried to take his photograph.
He delighted in coincidence. Visiting Sicily for the first
time, he found his Palermo hotel curiously familiar; later
he realised it was where his parents had stayed on their
honeymoon, and where he had been conceived.
He married a Javanese dancer, Ratna Mohini, in 1937. The
marriage was later dissolved and in 1970 he married Martine
Franck, herself an accomplished photographer. They adopted a
daughter.