Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 – 2004)
San Francisco, USA, 1946
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a pioneer in combining documentary street photography with artistic skill. Equipped with a Leica 50mm, revolutionary in its practicality, he was a master at capturing fleeting moments through his intuitive feel for the so-called “Decisive Moment". His during the act of photography carefully selected image frames always convey profound statements about human nature through an interweaving of visual language and emotion.
This is also the case in this work, whose protagonists, arranged in a compositional triangle, find themselves in an interplay of lifestages and divergent body languages. While the two women appear to be watching over the boy, the toy revolver in his hand functions as a kind of harbinger that already seems to manifest a habitus of socialized masculinity in the child. Meanwhile, the banister, which leads the viewer's gaze straight into the pictorial space, equates the photographer's position with that of the viewer.
Gelatin silver print on double weight baryta, print date: 1980s
Image dimensions 24,2 x 16,1 cm (24,2 x 16,1 inch)
Object dimensions 25,5 x 20,2 cm (25,5 x 20,2 inch)
Mounting, Framing Archival mat board 40 x 30 cm, frame upon request
Condition
Semi-matt paper, very good condition
Annotations
Photographer's copyright and collector's stamp on the reverse
Literature
Ph. Arbaizar, Jean Clair, C. Cookman, Wer sind sie, Henri Cartier-Bresson? Das Lebenswerk in 602 Bildern, Munich: Schirmer-Mosel 2003, p. 223.
Prints / Magnum / Alter / Leica / Magnum / Waffe /
