“THE RAPHAEL OF 20TH-CENTURY PHOTOGRAPHERS”: CARTIER-BRESSON’S L’AMÉRIQUE FURTIVEMENT

CARTIER-BRESSON, Henri. L’Amérique Furtivement. (Paris): Seuil, (1991). Quarto, original green cloth, original dust jacket. $325.

First French edition of this study of Cartier-Bresson’s images of America from the ’30s through the ’60s, with 99 full-page duotones. From the collection of photojournalist Peter Turnley.

“Cartier-Bresson is famous for his theory of the ‘decisive moment’-that is seizing the split second when the subject stands revealed in its most significant aspect… Today he ranks as one of the most important and influential photographers of this century” (Blodgett, 96). Of this work Arthur Miller observes, “There was plenty of glitz in America in the 60s and 70s, yes and in the 40s, the era of these pictures, but clearly Cartier-Bresson was trying to get behind it to the substance of American society. And since his is fundamentally a tragic vision he reacted most feelingly to what in America he saw as related to its decay, its pain. The very horizon is often oppressive, jagged with junked cars, the detritus of the consumer culture, which after all is a culture of planned waste, engineered obsolescence.” Published same year in the United States, no priority established. Text in French. See Roth, 20. From the collection of Peter Turnley, acclaimed photojournalist for Newsweek, Life and Harper’s Magazine, who has covered “almost every important international news event of the last 15 years” (New York Times). Owner signature.

A fine copy.