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Artist or Maker: HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON (1908-2004)

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Description: Italy, 1933
gelatin silver print
signed in ink (on the verso)
8 x 11 5/8in. (20.3 x 29.5cm.)

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Published: Galassi, Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Early Work, The Museum of Modern Art, 1987, p. 135; Henri Cartier-Bresson: Scrapbook, Steidl, 2006, p. 95

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Notes: Depicted are Henri Cartier-Bresson's friends, the writer André
Pieyre de Mandiargues and the surrealist artist, Léonor Fini. This
extremely rare early print has been retouched to enhance the detail
on Fini's breast and to eliminate a shadow on her thigh. The entwined
figures form a surreal being. Photographed from above against a
horizonless background, it is clearly a surrealist picture, but
Cartier-Bresson's friend Robert Capa cautioned him about labels. He
said, 'Beware of labels. They are comforting, but people will stick
them on you and you will never be able to get rid of them. You will
be labeled the little surrealist photographer... you will be lost,
and will become precious and mannered. Continue on your way, but with
the label of photojournalist, and keep the rest deep in your
heart.' (Assouline, Henri Cartier-Bresson: A Biography, Thames
and Hudson, 2005, p. 148).