Born in 1908, the son of a wealthy textile manufacturer, Cartier-Bresson studied in Paris from 1927-8 with the Cubist painter and critic Andre Lhote. This instilled in him a love of painting and an eye for the surreal, both of which influenced his later work.
He went on to study literature at Cambridge and to complete his military service. He then travelled to the USA but contracted Blackwater fever and had to return to Marseilles to convalesce.
His first photographs were taken on a visit to the Ivory Coast in 1930. From here on, he began to exploit his interest in photography, selling pictures to magazines and agencies. In 1933 the first exhibitions of his work were held in Madrid and New York.
Cartier-Bresson travelled widely, recording photographically the lives of ordinary people. At the Coronation of George VI, he chose to record the spectators rather than the grand participants, thus giving a fresh perspective to the event.
In 1936, he worked with Jean Renoir, assisting in the production of two of his films. This led him to direct his own film documentary about the Spanish Civil War Return to Life (1937). In the Civil War he had filmed in Republican hospitals.
During World War Two, he served as a captain in the French army, spending three years as a prisoner of war before escaping. He joined the Resistance in Paris and made a photographic record of the Occupation, retreat and Allied invasion. His film Le Retour (1945) dealt with the fate of returning French POWs.
In 1947 he founded, with others, the co-operative photographic agency Magnum Photos.
His published collections of photographs include The Decisive Moment (1952). |
