This book offers an outstanding retrospective collection of the master of 20th-century photography, Henri Cartier-Bresson. Reproduced in exquisite black and white, the images in this book range from Henri Cartier-Bresson's earliest work in France, Spain, and Mexico through his postwar travels in Asia, the US, and Russia, and even include landscapes from the 1970s, when he retired his camera to pursue drawing. While his instinct for capturing what he called the decisive moment was unparalleled, as a photojournalist Cartier-Bresson was uniquely concerned with the human impact of historic events. In his photographs of the liberation of France from the Nazis, the death of Ghandi, and the creation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Cartier-Bresson focused on the reactions of the crowds rather than the subjects of the events. And while his portraits of Sartre, Giacometti, Faulkner, Capote, and other artists are iconic, he gave equal attention to those forgotten by history: a dead resistance fighter lying on the bank of the Rhine, children playing alongside the Berlin Wall, and a eunuch in Peking's Imperial Court. Divided into six thematic sections, the book presents the photographs in spare double-page spreads. In a handwritten note included at the end of the book, Cartier-Bresson writes, "In order to give meaning to the world, one must feel involved in what one singles out through the viewfinder." His work shows how he has been able to capture the decisive moment with such extreme humility and profound humanity.

One of the most famous books in the history of photography, this volume assembles Cartier-Bresson's best work from his early years.

Published to accompany an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, this is the first major publication to make full use of the extensive holdings of the Fondation Cartier-Bresson, including thousands of prints and a vast resource of documents relating to the photographer's life and work.

The first compilation of writings by a master of photography. One of the leading lights in photography of the twentieth century, Henri Cartier-Bresson is also a shrewd observer and critic. His writings on photography and photographers, which have appeared sporadically over the past forty-five years, are gathered here for the first time. Several have never before appeared in English. "The Mind's Eye" features Cartier-Bresson's famous text on "the decisive moment" as well as his observations on Moscow, Cuba, and China during turbulent times, which ring with the same immediacy and visual intensity that he brings to his photography. Cartier-Bresson remains as direct and insightful as ever in his writings. His commentary on photographer friends he has known-including Robert Capa, Andre Kertesz, Ernst Haas, and Sarah Moon-reveal the impassioned and compassionate vision for which Cartier-Bresson is beloved.

“These masterful photos blend the spontaneity of a great snapshot with the highly organized composition of a classical painting.”—Publishers Weekly Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) was perhaps the finest and most influential image maker of the twentieth century, and his portraits are among his best-known work. Over a fifty-year period, he photographed some of the most eminent personalities of the era, as well as ordinary people, chosen as subjects because of their striking and unusual features. Originally published to coincide with an exhibition at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris, this book features both well-known images and previously unpublished portraits: Ezra Pound, Andre´ Breton, Martin Luther King, Samuel Beckett, Truman Capote, Susan Sontag, Carl Jung, William Faulkner, Marilyn Monroe, Henri Matisse, and many more. Each photograph was chosen because it perfectly embodies Cartier-Bresson’s description of what he was attempting to communicate in his work: “Above all I look for an inner silence. I seek to translate the personality and not an expression.” The portraits reproduced here—discreet, without artifice—confirm once more the singular gift of Cartier-Bresson, who instinctively knew in which revealing fraction of a second to click the shutter.

Reproductions of more than 100 works by the founder of the photography agency Magnum capture such scenes as a refugee camp after the partition and the Maharaja of Barodea's birthday celebration. Original. 10,000 first printing.