As I promised, I will continue to write on Henri.
After destroying many of his early works, Henri Cartier Bresson studied English art and literature at Cambridge University between 1928 and 1929. He then served in the army in Bourget near Paris for one year. After reading Joseph Conrad’s book “Heart of Darkness” in 1931, he went to the Ivory Coast, one of the African colonies of France, to experience the first great adventure of his life. He wrote; “I left Lhote’s studio because I didn’t want to get into a systematic spirit. Drawing pictures and changing the world was more important to me than anything else was.”
He spent his life on the Ivory Coast by hunting and selling what he hunted. He brought a portable camera with him. He literally took his first pictures here. However, this first adventure ended because of malaria. He returned to France, stayed in Marseille for a while to recover. He had printed photographs he took in Africa, but few remained intact due to tropical weather. Then he threw himself into the streets. He captured the lives of people in France, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Germany. Bresson was against artificial light, including flashlights. He didn’t get anything between him and his object. He wanted to create his photographs on the camera, not in a dark room. According to him, the photograph should not be cut; it should be printed in full or not printed at all.
Early Photographs of Bresson and Photojournalism
His early photographs were exhibited first at the Julien Lévy gallery in New York and then at the Ateneo Club in Madrid. Charles Peignot also published these photos in Arts et Métiers Graphiques.
He went to Mexico in 1933 as part of an ethnographic project. Stayed there for a year. He established relationships with Mexican left intellectuals and artists. He photographed people and streets. He shared an exhibition with the famous Mexican photographer Miguel Alvarez Bravo.
He went to New York in 1935. Here he took the first New York photos of him. On the other hand, he had the opportunity to make his first cinema trials alongside Paul Strand. When he returned to France, he started working with the French director Jean Renoir. He was the second assistant director in Renoir’s movie “Un parti de campagne” (A Day in the Country), and even played a minor role. He continued to work with Renoir between 1936 and 1939. He was also a photojournalist for the communist newspaper Ce Soir. The two immigrants Capa and Chim, whom he met in 1934, were also working with the Alliance Agency with Bresson.
Making Documentaries
In 1937, he married the Javanese dancer Ratna Mohini. In the same year, he made two documentary films, “victoire de la vie” (Return to Life) and “L’espagne Vivra” (Spain will Live), about the hospitals of Republican Spain. He captured King VI. George’s coronation and this work was published in Regards. While all the other reporters were trying to film the king, he directed his camera at the crowds that came to see the King.
In 1939, he worked as assistant director in the film “La règle du jeu” (The Rules of the Game), also directed by Renoir, which criticized the French bourgeoisie. In the same year, it was the beginning of the Second World War. Henri joined the army. However, he was captured by the Nazis in June 1940, and sent to a concentration camp. He had to spend about 3 years here. He tried to escape twice but failed, and escaped on his third attempt. He returned to France and joined the anti-Nazi resistance. He photographed the Second World War and the liberation of Paris. He also took portraits of celebrities such as George Braque,
Henri Matisse et Pierre Bonnard.
In 1945, he made the documentary “Le Retour” (The Return) for the United States Office of War Information, and the documentary was about returning French prisoners of war and immigrants.
At the end of the war, a rumor spread in America that Henri was dead. Thereupon, the New York Museum of Modern Art started preparing an exhibition to commemorate him. In 1946, when it was learned that Henri was alive, he was invited to New York to prepare for the exhibition. The exhibition opened in 1947 and the Museum of Modern Art published the first book on Bresson’s work under the name “Photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson” and with the texts by Lincoln Kirstein and Beaumont Newhall.
The spring of the same year saw the birth of Magnum.
Keep reading my posts to see what happened next!
Thanks!
Anıl Uzun
Note: In this blog post, I get help from the famous book of Russell Miller and the website of The International Center of Photography (ICP). If you want to take a look here is the info; Miller, Russell. Magnum: Fifty Years at the Front Line of History, Grove Pres, New York, 1997. ICP: www.icp.org.