Friday, November 25, 2022

Henri Cartier-Bresson portraits

Here are some of my favourite portraits by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Jean Anouilh by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, 1947


Ezra Pound by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1971

HCB remembers his meeting with Pound as "nothing but a very long silence. It seemed to last for hours."



Henri Cartier-Bresson,  Our cat Ulysses and Martine's shadow, 1989

Martine was another very fine photographer, Martine Franck, HCB's wife from 1970 until his death in 2004.



Georges Braque by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1947



Malcolm X by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1961



Paul Valéry by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1945

This is one of my all-time favourite photographs.




Tony Hancock by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1962



Jean-Paul Sartre by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Le Pont des Arts, Paris, 1946

"One feels the weight of their thoughts, but it is the sense of silence, the lack of any imagined sound, that shrouds this image in mystery."
- Philip Brookman



Simone de Beauvoir by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1945

"She stands at an angle, pushing right on the surface of the picture, sharply focused against a background that dissolves into an almost abstract scene of three anonymous figures passing each other on the street"
- Philip Brookman



Samuel Beckett by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1964



Martine Franck & Henri Cartier-Bresson by Rene Burri, 2002

The two got together in the late 1950s. "Martine," he said to her, "I want to come and see your contact sheets."



Henri Cartier-Bresson by Inge Morath, Munich, 1953

"When you are with Henri it’s hard to photograph because he would see it first, & you can’t do the same thing. Nothing escaped his lens." 

Henri Cartier-Bresson by Carl Van Vechten, April 20, 1935



Henri Cartier-Bresson by Arnold Newman, 1947

Vladimir Nabokov said HCB's eyes were "like darts, sharp and clever, limpidly blue and infinitely agile."


Recommended: An Inner Silence: The Portraits of Henri Cartier-Bresson, 2006



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