HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON (French, 1908-2004) Maharajah of Baria Arrives To Marry, Jaipur, 1948. Sheet Fed Gravure, 1952, France. Photogravure Dimensions: 9.20 x 13.45 INCHES, Heat Wax Mounted on Conservation Board, 14.00 x 18.00 INCHES.  

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON first traveled to India in December 1947, taking a 6,888 nautical mile journey by sea from England. Upon arriving, he encountered a newly independent nation whose people were experiencing mounting tensions due to the religiously based partition of India and Pakistan. Amidst this conflict, Cartier-Bresson captured one of his best known images, Maharajah of Baria Arrives To Marry, Jaipur, 1948.

Cartier-Bresson’s status as a premier photojournalist, increasing demand for his pictures from leading publications including LIFE, Harper’s Bazaar, Now, and The New York Times Magazine. Over the course of the next 40 years, Cartier-Bresson continued to return to India, traveling there six times through 1987. - PHILLIPS

LITERATURE:

Thames & Hudson, Henri Cartier-Bresson: In India
Thames & Hudson, Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Image and The World

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON (French, 1908-2004) Upon picking up a Leica camera in the early 1930s, Henri Cartier-Bresson fell in love with the spontaneity of photography and went on to pioneer photojournalism. MoMA credits his “uncanny ability to capture life on the run” with helping to define the creative potential of modern photography and lauds him as “the keenest observer of the global theater of human affairs.” Taking pride in capturing “the decisive moment,“ Cartier-Bresson intimately captured portraits and scenes, both mundane and historic, around the world. In 1947, he formed Magnum Photos, a photography cooperative, with Robert Capa and others. Over the ensuing three decades, assignments took him from Ghandi’s funeral in India, to the chaotic streets of Shanghai during China’s Communist revolution, to Queen Charlotte’s elegant ball in London. “To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It's a way of life,” he said. - ARTSY 

Authenticated by Borgia, INC.