French, b.1908 - 2004

Born in Chanteloup, Cartier-Bresson started painting in 1923 and began to photograph in 1931, met Tériade, the editor of Verve magazine and frequented members of the French surrealist movement. After a trip to the Ivory Coast he discovered the Leica, since then his camera of choice.

He pursued his photographic career in Eastern Europe and Mexico, later on making films with Jean Renoir, Jacques Becker and André Zvoboda and a documentary on Republican Spain (1937).

A war prisoner, he escaped in 1940 and made portraits of artists: Matisse, Rouault, Braque, Bonnard....