Figure 1.--Here we see one of Cartier-Bresson's street photographs. This one was taken in Rome during 1956. While it still has somewhat of a Third World look to it with the horse or donkey in the street, the Italian Economic Miracle and the scene is dramtically different than what we would have seen in the 1940s after World War II.

Henri Cartier-Bresson went out on the streets of France and snapped people and every day life as they really were. He tried to do it unobtrusively with his trysty Leica. This woyld not be allowed in many places today. He worked in less complicated times. And he has left a fascinating record of the era. Cartier-Bresson is described as a humanist photigrapher and a master of candid photograohy. He did not specialize specifically on childrem, but captured some womderful images of them. Much of his work was in France, but we know he worked in most other European countries as well. Here we see an Itakian image taken in 1956 (figure 1). We also see Spanish images, inckuding a famous photogragh taken in Seville during 1933. He even became the first Western photograoher to be allowed to photograph freely in the Soviet Union. He had a long career leaving a fascinating body of work. He established a reputation in in the 30s and even had a show in America before the War. He met and befriended Robert Capa in his travels around Europe. We have not yet found many examples of his 1930s street work. We notice some of his stree photograpohy in Europe during the 1950s-60s. The photograph here is a good example (figure 1). During the 1970s his output slowed considerablt. He decided that he had basically said all he had to say.

Created: 3:28 PM 8/10/2018
Last updated: 1:39 AM 5/20/2020