With 500 illustrations in colour & black and white

This lavishly illustrated monograph – published to accompany France’s first major retrospective since the photographer’s death in 2004 – traces Cartier-Bresson’s development as a photographer, activist, journalist and artist. In addition to some of his best-known photographs, here are many seldom seen or unpublished images, and some rarities in colour as well as black and white.

This is an indispensable work for lovers of photography and admirers of Henri Cartier-Bresson, whose influence continues to endure so powerfully today.

His work embraced art, politics, revolution and war. But more powerful than any of these overarching themes was his evident concern for the human individual at every social level. Cartier-Bresson’s observations of the effects of poverty and revolution around the world led directly to his pioneering photojournalism, and his co-founding of Magnum Photos. He also became renowned for his penetrating portraits of the most prominent figures of his time: Cartier-Bresson’s biographer Pierre Assouline called him ‘the eye of the century’.

Clément Chéroux is a historian of photography and curator of the 2014 retrospective exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, Paris.