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Photojournalist Phenom
Henri Cartier-Bresson retrospective comes to MoMA
Photo: Jardin des Plantes, Paris (Couples Embracing; One with Child)
Asked quickly for a line-up of photography all-stars, most people would spew out a few of the following: Arbus, Richter, Adams, Frank, Newton. Add to that list Henri Cartier-Bresson, a photojournalist whose unprecedented brilliance helped make photography the art form it is today.
His is a brilliance that this century has yet to appreciate. Until now, that is. This spring, MoMA puts on the first major retrospective of Cartier-Bresson on this side of the Atlantic in three decades.
The exhibition features 300 of his photographs, which span a length of 60 years, a lengthy career not to be taken lightly. In fact, the retrospective is so comprehensive that it had to be split into twelve sections. About 60 of these photographs have yet to be seen by the public.
Cartier-Bresson’s earliest pieces on display showcase his pioneering use of a quick, handheld camera to catch fleeting moments around the globe. With a Forrest Gump-like knack to be wherever the action was, Cartier-Bresson continued to capture monumental events on film like the regime change in China (Shanghai, China (1948)) and the liberation of Paris after World War II. Along with these are the original publications in which such photos were published: Life, Paris Match, and the like.
Though most known for this mastery of photojournalism, Cartier-Bresson also excelled at portraits. Expertly framed and lit like the rest of his work, his portraits in particular show off his formal training in painting and drawing. He captured an intensity in his subjects that can be rivaled only by the likes of Diane Arbus. Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie (1945), featuring the daughter and son-in-law of Marie Curie and Nobel-prize winners themselves, is particularly arresting.
This more than impressive body of work has caused Oxford Art Online to declare that Cartier-Bresson is to photography what Le Corbusier is to architecture. Don’t buy it? See for yourself at MoMA, April 11 through June 28, for “Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century.” Admission is included with the price of your ticket ($20 for adults, $16 for seniors, and $12 for students). For more information, please visit moma.org.