ART
Evans/Cartier Bresson |
Written 13 July |
Sunday 07 December, 00:00Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, 75014 [map]
La Fondation HCB celebrates its centenary of the birth of
Henri Cartier Bresson
in association with
Walker Evans, one of the photographer's he most admired and with whom he shared a common affection: America. This exhibition pays homage to the two great masters of 20th century photography. The exhibition includes 86 images taken between 1929 and 1947 in urban environments - New York, Washington, Chicago, California and in the South - Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.
Walker Evans (1903-1975), a young American taken with
Flaubert and
Joyce, came to Paris in 1926 in the hope of becoming a writer. It was his return to the US that made him decide to focus on photography. Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004), photographed the 1930s before trying his hand at cinema –in New York with
Paul Strand and then in France with Jean Renoir- before finally dedicating himself to photography. Both full of an insatiable curiosity and a fierce will to be free to document their time, it is through photography that Evans and Cartier-Bresson demonstrate, in different ways, a level of social critique.
The two artists shared a great respect for one another's work with Bresson often evoking Evan's The Girl in Fulton Street which he used in his inaugural exhibition of his foundation in 2003.
Cartier had said « C'est l'Amérique qui m'a fait » (America made me). His photography has been exhibited at the Julien Levy gallery in New York (1933-1935), then at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947. He stayed in New York in 1935 and it's around this time that the majority of his American body of work was produced. For the Harper's Bazaar he traveled with Truman Capote and then with John Malcolm Brinnin with the aim of making a book which never materialized but he did discover and document an immense and socially diverse America.
Walker Evans' work often looks at decay and social decline, particularly through the Depression where he documented much of the
Farm Security Administration's work. His work, American Photographs, became a cult classic on publication in 1938. Many of the images of Bresson and Evans produced at this time became major works. This exhibition celebrates their combined talents and successes.
