IMAGES A LA SAUVETTE
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson: IMAGES A LA SAUVETTE. Paris: Editions Verve, 1952. First edition [published simultaneously in English as The Decisive Moment (a more literal translation of the title--and possibly more evocative--would be 'Images on the Run'). Folio. Decorated paper cover boards. No dust jacket as issued. 158 pp. 126 black and white gravure reproductions. Cover illustration by Henri Matisse. Boards lightly age-toned at edges, with spine uniformly darkened. Boards lightly bowed. Spine heel and crown slightly bruised. Joints tender with mild textblock and signature loosening. A very good copy of this legendary and fragile folio.
10.75 x 14.5 hardcover book with 158 pages and 126 black and white gravure reproductions. Original cover illustration by Henri Matisse.
As Martin Parr and Gerry Badger write in The Photobook: A History, Vol. 1 this renowned volume is more than a monograph; "it has overriding unifying factors that elevate it into a great photobook. The first is the concept of the 'decisive moment' itself, which defines the elegance of Cartier-Bresson's imagery: the instant when all the elements in the picture-frame come together to make the perfect image--not the peak of action necessarily, but the formal peak . . . . [It] is one of the greatest of all photobooks."
Widely considered the greatest photographer of the twentieth century, Henri Cartier-Bresson [1908 - 2004] disdained careful preliminary setups. Instead, he approached his work like a hunter, camera always at the ready to record a fleeting expression, an angle, a deed. His intuition and lightning grasp of the perfect composition could make a story out of a stranger's casual gesture or a fleeting confluence of shadow and reflection.
The decisive moment is when the world stands still and something unique is born. This artistic philosophy was captured in his landmark 1952 book and essay "The Decisive Moment," probably the most poetically instructive evocation of the field photographer's art yet written.