Henri Cartier-Bresson - The Arc of Photography: A Private East Coast Collection New York Tuesday, October 4, 2011 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    The Collection of Pierre de Fenogle, the first Curator of Photography at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Prakapas Gallery, New York

  • Literature

    de Mandiargues, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Photo-Portraits, p. 177; Galassi, Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Early Work, pl. 86 there titled and dated Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues, Italy, 1932-1933

  • Catalogue Essay

    French novelist, playwright, critic and poet André Pieyre de Mandiargues (1909-1991) was closely affiliated with the Surrealists in the 1930s, by which point Henri Cartier-Bresson had already been immersing himself in the revolutionary movement. The intellectual and artistic dialogue between the two perservered, as evidenced by de Mandiargues’s continuous writing on Henri Cartier-Bressson’s portraits included in the following publications: Ritratti: 1928-1982 (co-written with Ferdinando Scianna), 1983; Photoportraits, 1985; and A propos de Paris (co-written with Véra Feyder) published posthumously in 1994.

  • Artist Biography

    Henri Cartier-Bresson

    French • 1908 - 2004

    Candidly capturing fleeting moments of beauty among the seemingly ordinary happenings of daily life, Henri Cartier-Bresson's work is intuitive and observational. Initially influenced by the Surrealists' "aimless walks of discovery," he began shooting on his Leica while traveling through Europe in 1932, revealing the hidden drama and idiosyncrasy in the everyday and mundane. The hand-held Leica allowed him ease of movement while attracting minimal notice as he wandered in foreign lands, taking images that matched his bohemian spontaneity with his painterly sense of composition.

    Cartier-Bresson did not plan or arrange his photographs. His practice was to release the shutter at the moment his instincts told him the scene before him was in perfect balance. This he later famously titled "the decisive moment" — a concept that would influence photographers throughout the twentieth century. 

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THE ARC OF PHOTOGRAPHY: A PRIVATE EAST COAST COLLECTION

224

André de Mandiargues

1933
Gelatin silver print.
6 3/8 x 9 1/4 in. (16.2 x 23.5 cm).
Initialed 'H+C-B', titled and annotated 'j ai tiré moi même (et sa se voir) cette photo d' André de M un ami de Pierre de F. (I have printed this print myself [and one can see that] of André de M, a friend of Pierre de F.) in ink and red credit stamp on the verso.

Estimate
$30,000 - 50,000 

Sold for $37,500

The Arc of Photography: A Private East Coast Collection

4 October 2011 6PM
New York