Legendary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who traveled the world for more than a half-century capturing human drama with his camera, has died, the French Cul-ture Ministry said. He was 95.
Cartier-Bresson shot for Life, Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and his work inspired generations of photographers. Cartier-Bresson became a French national treasure, though he was famously averse to having his own picture taken or to giving interviews.
PHOTO: REUTERS
A statement from his family and the Magnum photo agency, which Cartier-Bresson co-founded, said he died on Tuesday and a private funeral was held on Wednesday.
Paul Bruton, a Magnum spokes-man, said he had died at home in Cereste in southeastern France, and was buried in the nearby Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region.
French President Jacques Chirac said: "With him, France loses a genius photographer, a true master and one of the most gifted artists of his generation and most respected in the world."
Whether recording the funeral of Mahatma Gandhi in India or Henri Matisse at home, Cartier-Bresson sought to render the feeling of the moment with his distinctive classical style and penchant for geometrical composition.
"In whatever one does, there must be a relationship between the eye and the heart," he once said in a rare interview. "With the one eye that is closed, one looks within; with the other eye that is open, one looks without."
His photography centered on what he described as "the decisive moment" evoking the significance of a given situation as all the external elements fall into place.
Cartier-Bresson worked only with black-and-white film and without a flash. Thrusting a subject in the limelight, he once said, was a sure way to destroy it.
While most of his international fame was generated from worldwide exhibitions and publications, Cartier-Bresson gained recognition from two documentary films he made, one about medical aid to the loyalists in the Spanish Civil War and the other about French prisoners of war returning home at the end of World War II.
Cartier-Bresson was born Aug. 22, 1908, in Chanteloup outside Paris to a wealthy textile family. At 20, he turned his back on the family business to study painting. He had his first exhibitions in Madrid and New York in 1933.
At the outbreak of World War II, he was drafted into the French army, where he was captured in June 1940. After nearly three years in German prison camps, Cartier-Bresson escaped and returned to Paris, where he transported ex-prisoners for the underground.
In the last 25 years of his life, Cartier-Bresson largely turned away from photography to embrace his first love, painting.
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) purge of his most senior general is driven by his effort to both secure “total control” of his military and root out corruption, US Ambassador to China David Perdue said told Bloomberg Television yesterday. The probe into Zhang Youxia (張又俠), Xi’s second-in-command, announced over the weekend, is a “major development,” Perdue said, citing the family connections the vice chair of China’s apex military commission has with Xi. Chinese authorities said Zhang was being investigated for suspected serious discipline and law violations, without disclosing further details. “I take him at his word that there’s a corruption effort under
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
RSS