Henri Cartier-Bresson

Silver print, printed 1946. Inscribed in pencil on the reverse. Together with an authentication form number 280507/3 from the HCB Foundation signed by Martine Franck Cartier-Bresson.

Photographs, Sotheby's, May 29th, 2007, Lot 66

Photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Museum of Modern Art, New York, February 5th – April 6th, 1947.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Little, Brown and Company, 1979, pl. 151;
Galassi, Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Early Work, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1987, p. 96; 
Henri Cartier-Bresson; The Man, the Image and the World, Thames and Hudson, 2003, ill. p. 105, pl. 117;
Henri Cartier-Bresson: Scrapbook: Photographs 1932-1946, Thames and Hudson, 2006,  cat. no. 93, p. 135.

This print is in overall good condition, with light silvering along the bottom edge and minor scratches throughout the print, only visible in raking light. With bumps to the edges and corners of the sheet.
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Barcelona, 1933, is a rare example of one of Cartier-Bresson’s early explorations with photography. In 1932, he purchased a 35mm Leica camera, something which he would quickly become inseparable from, referring to it as his notebook. The use of a small camera enhanced his ability to capture the quotidian, which is evident in Barcelona. The composition seems unbalanced, which is emphasised by the uneven angles and cropped figure in the foreground.  The position of the man with his hand on his head looking down is juxtaposed against the figures on the wall with raised faces. Cartier-Bresson’s spontaneous yet artistic photographs, such as this one, played an important role in establishing photojournalism as an art form and ultimately garnered him international fame as one of the century’s greatest photographers.