Henri Cartier-Bresson

© Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos, Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

The artist in 1930

© Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum photos, Collection Fondation HBC

From the Files

+ The auction record for Cartier-Bresson was set at Christie’s New York in April when a vintage gelatin silver print of Hyères, France, 1932, sold for $265,000(est. $60–90,000).

+ Even lesser-known Cartier-Bresson prints are being sought after by collectors.The Santa Monica dealer Peter Fetterman had an exhibit of Bresson’s work last spring called “Rarely Seen,” from which he sold a 1954 photograph of young Bolshoi ballerinas at the barre for $20,000.

+ Images à la sauvette, the title of his first book of photographs, published in1952, translates as “pictures on the run.” The English edition was titled The Decisive Moment, from a quote by the 17th-century cardinal de Retz. The phrase is inextricably linked with Cartier-Bresson.

+ A highlight of this month’s photography auctions is the artist’s Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1954, at Christie’s New York October 13–14 (est. $15–$25,000).

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Although Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) epitomizedthe adventurous, itinerant photojournalist, he was also,by inclination and training, an artist. From the 1930s throughthe ’50s, the French photographer captured some of the mostimportant political and historical developments of the time, from the liberationof Paris to the collapse of the Nationalist regime in China. But the lyricism andpoetry of such images as Seville, 1933—a remarkable picture of children playing,one of them on crutches, viewed through a bombed-out wall—transcend theirdocumentary function. The Decisive Moment, the title of the English edition ofhis first book of photographs, published in 1952, reflects Cartier-Bresson’s almostuncanny ability to shoot an event at precisely the instant when the formal elementsfell beautifully into place. This talent is evident in one of his best-knownpictures, Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, 1932, of a man caught in midair as hejumps over a puddle, his reflection his perfect double. “He’s the master of streetphotography,” says the New York dealer Howard Greenberg, “and that’s a style of work that he was the first to make into real art.”

The son of a wealthy textile manufacturer, Cartier-Bresson studied paintingand traveled in the same Parisian circles as André Breton, soaking up the freespiritedethos of Surrealism. He acquired his first camera, a Leica, in 1931 and, a fewyears later, in 1935, exhibited his photographs at the influential Julien Levy Gallery,in New York. “Immediately, he was being accepted within a high-art context,”says Philippe Garner, the international head of photographs at Christie’s.

Earlier this year—the centenary of his birth—a record for his work was setwhen a gelatin silver print of Hyères, France, 1932,sold at Christie’s New York for $265,000,well above its high estimate of $90,000. Theimage is classic Cartier-Bresson: a shot of abicyclist taken from the top of a steep spiralstaircase, creating a complex geometry oflines and planes. “That was a highly desirable,beautiful print,” says Garner. “But Idon’t expect it to last too long as a record.There are works out there that could easilymake more.” Greenberg agrees that themarket has plenty of room to grow. He has sold vintageCartier-Bresson prints for between $100,000and $200,000 but comments, “I think the bar is nowhigher than that for the best ones.”

Cartier-Bresson’s best-known pictures, generallyfrom the 1930s and ’40s, are icons in the historyof photography. In addition to Hyères, France, hisnotable works include On the Banks of the Marne,1938, a view of French couples picnicking on theriverbank, and Valencia, 1933, an impressive feat ofcomposition and timing that shows a man lookingthrough the opening of a sliding door inside abullfight arena, one of his spectacles’ lenses turnedinto a perfect, opaque circle by reflected light. Pricesfor top-quality vintage prints of these images haveclimbed steadily in the past several years: In Octoberof 2004, for example, a print of Valencia sold for$78,000 at Sotheby’s New York, the highest sumpaid so far at auction for that work.

The photographer’s auction record before the sale ofHyères, France was also set at Christie’s New York, where, inFebruary 2007, a signed gelatin silver vintage print of Italy, 1933,brought $204,000. A gelatin silver print of On the Banks of theMarne went for $132,000 at Christie’s New York in October2005. And in October 2006, a signed print of Cuba, 1934, fetched$102,000 at Phillips de Pury & Company. “It’s getting moredifficult to find prints,” notes the Paris dealer Agathe Gaillard.

Cartier-Bresson was drafted shortly after World War IIbroke out and, in 1940, was captured by the Germans. He managedto escape from a prison camp and returned to Paris, wherehe joined the Resistance. While hiding out from and fightingthe occupiers, he took documentary photographs as well asportraits of some of the most famous artists and writers ofthe time, including Georges Braque, Pierre Bonnard and HenriMatisse. The portraits, although among the best-known imagesof these personalities, are generally less sought after, and thusless expensive, than his street photography. A late print of HenriMatisse, Vence, France, 1944, for example, brought just $6,000at Bonhams & Butterfields, in San Francisco, in May. Some,however, bring considerably more than that: A signed 1938 printof Alberto Giacometti working in his Paris studio sold at Phillipsin New York in April 2006 for $38,400.

In 1947, along with Robert Capa, George Rodger, David“Chim” Seymour and William Vandivert, Cartier-Bressonfounded the agency Magnum Photos, a cooperative that enabled members towork outside the confines of magazine journalism and to hold the copyrightson their own pictures. Originally, each photographer was assigned an area ofthe world to cover. Cartier-Bresson drew India and the Far East.

Like many photojournalists who were sending film home from far-off locations,Cartier-Bresson rarely developed his own photographs. He was meticulousabout the prints, however, differentiating between those made for collectors,which he signed, and those for reproduction inpublications. The Web site of the Fondation HenriCartier-Bresson, in Paris, quotes a letter, dated 2000,in which the photographer says: “I havealways signed and autographed my photographsto the people I wished to give themto. … All other prints, which are only identifiedwith a ‘Henri Cartier-Bresson’ stampor a ‘Magnum Photos’ stamp, belong tomy own person. Therefore, anyone in possession of such a print cannot possiblyclaim in good faith that he or sheowns it.” The reality of the marketis more complicated. “That doesn’tcomment on whether those prints arelegitimate or not, or valuable or not,”says Greenberg, who sits on the boardof the foundation, established in 2003by Cartier-Bresson and his wife, thephotographer Martine Franck, andtheir daughter, Melanie. According toGarner (who calls the Magnum prints“pieces of the history of photography,”rather than art objects), those depictingdesirable subjects can sell for tensof thousands of dollars.

As for “vintage” prints, thedesignation may be important tocollectors, but to Cartier-Bresson, as to others of hisgeneration with backgrounds in photojournalism,it meant little. “He regarded the fetish of the vintageprint as a market curiosity. What mattered was theimage, beautifully printed,” says Garner, who neverthelessadds, “I would argue that collectors havethe right to feel there is something more magicalin a print made at around the time the photographwas taken, with all the differences of paper type andtherefore of color and tonality that that implies.”

The market has, indeed, placed apremium on Cartier-Bresson’s vintagework. But since his death four yearsago, when he was 95, his later printshave become more sought after, eventhose made in quantity. A signed versionof On the Banks of the Marne thatwas printed 1950–59 (est. $60–90,000)fetched $132,000 at Christie’s New York in October 2005. Some of these imagesmay not be true “later prints,” however. According to the Santa Monica dealer PeterFetterman, the term generally denotes those made in the 1980s and ’90s, when thephotography market really took off.

Cartier-Bresson continued to have prints of his negatives made until theend of his life, even though he stopped shooting pictures in the mid-1970s toturn his attention to drawing. A professional photographer before there was aphotography market, he was uninterested in the idea of creating editions of hisprints. “He made a print when he was asked for a print,” says the dealer AgatheGaillard, who worked with him for many years. “For some of the well-knownpictures, there can be more than 100 prints.” That has not thwarted the growthof his market. “It doesn’t matter, for instance, that there are lots of prints outthere for Rue Mouffetard, Paris,” says Christopher Mahoney, senior specialistin the photography department at Sotheby’s New York, referring to the 1954image of a jaunty young boy carrying a bottle of wine in each arm as he struts,grinning, down the street. “So many people want to have it that there is insufficientsupply.” A later print of Rue Mouffetard sold at Sotheby’s London thispast May for £13,100 ($25,560). Another late print of the same image had sold inNovember 2007, also at Sotheby’s London, for £10,625 ($22,085).

As Cartier-Bresson’s most emblematic works become scarcer, lesser-knownprints are attracting attention. Last March, Fetterman mounted a showof Cartier-Bresson’s work called “Rarely Seen,” from which he sold Natchez,Mississippi, 1947, depicting two dapper boys inmatching hats, for $20,000, and a print of QueenCharlotte’s Ball, 1959, an aerial view of dancing couples,for $25,000, prices that were in the exhibition’supper range. “In 2002, we were selling images for$5,000 or $6,000,” he says, “but thosesame images tripled overnight.”

The market is likely to continue itsupward trajectory when a survey of thephotographer’s work being organized byPeter Galassi, curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, opens there in 2010.Cartier-Bresson’s first show at moma was in 1946. Itwas conceived as “posthumous,” since he was presumedto have died after being taken prisoner by theGermans, but since he had in fact survived, he woundup working on the exhibition with the museum.

Cartier-Bresson fans can view his work this fallin two shows: “Walker Evans/Henri Cartier-Bresson:Photographing America,” at the Fondation Cartier-Bresson from September 10 until December 21, and“Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Art and Photographyof Paris,” at the Art Institute of Chicago, September10 through January 4, 2009. Collectors will have thechance to bid on 13 works, including Rue Mouffetard(est. $15–25,000), at the Christie’s New York photographysale on October 13 and 14.

“Most photographers have in their canonthree or four great pictures,” says Fetterman. “HenriCartier-Bresson has a hundred great ones. That’swhy he’s important.” "Henri Cartier-Bresson" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's October 2008 Table of Contents.