Henri Cartier-Bresson — International Center of Photography
Citation
International Center of Photography. “Henri Cartier-Bresson.” Constituent page in the ICP archive-browse index. Accessed 2026-05-06. https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/henri-cartier-bresson
Relevance
Tier-1 institutional archive page for Henri Cartier-Bresson at ICP. Reference for his biographical anchor (1908–2004; born Chanteloup; Magnum co-founder 1947). Cartier-Bresson has eleven plates in The Family of Man per strict-match grep against data/photographs.csv (2026-05-06): photo-0028 (Marriage France), photo-0122 (Land Indonesia), photo-0182 (Woman’s Work Bali), photo-0249 (Food France), photo-0277 (Relationships USA), photo-0352, photo-0357, photo-0395, photo-0427, photo-0466, photo-0468. (Earlier seed-batch grep entries quoted “five plates” — superseded by this strict-match recount.)
Key excerpts / pages
Verbatim quotations from the page fetched 2026-05-06:
- Birth and death dates given as “1908–2004”, nationality “French”.
- Born in Chanteloup; studied literature at Cambridge University (1928–29).
- “He began photographing in 1931 and purchased a Leica in 1933.”
- Joined an ethnographic expedition to Mexico in 1934.
- Studied cinematography with Paul Strand in 1935.
- Assisted filmmaker Jean Renoir (1936, 1939); created documentary Return to Life (1937).
- Drafted into French army’s film and photo unit in 1940; taken prisoner by Germans that year; after three years of imprisonment, escaped and worked for the French underground.
- Photographed France’s occupation and liberation (1944–1945).
- “In 1947 he co-founded the Magnum agency with Robert Capa, Chim (David Seymour), and George Rodger.”
- Won Overseas Press Club Award four times; American Society of Magazine Photographers award (1953); Prix de la Société Française de Photographie (1959).
- Left Magnum in 1966 to pursue drawing.
Notes
- Perspective: institutional / archival.
- The ICP page does not state Cartier-Bresson’s exact birth or death day-month tokens (22 August 1908 / 3 August 2004) — these are sourced via the Wikipedia pointer (src-wikipedia-cartier-bresson-pointer) and remain at pointer-tier; promotion to Tier 1/2 awaits a Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson or peer-reviewed source fetch.
- Note ICP’s co-founder list (“Robert Capa, Chim (David Seymour), and George Rodger”) is incomplete vs. the standard five-co-founder list which also includes Henri Cartier-Bresson himself and William Vandivert. The Magnum Photos directory (src-magnum-photographer-bios) lists all five in the page fetched 2026-05-06.
- Verified against fetched source on 2026-05-06.