Henri Cartier-Bresson's best photographs are being exhibited at the Claude Bernard gallery in Paris until February 26th 2000. Cartier-Bresson has given up his photographic reporting activity and has been devoting most of his time to drawing since 1994. Stressing that anybody could become a photographer now he said what counted above all was the eye and the feeling, two main assets that few people had.
Some of his best shots are being shown in this exhibition and demonstrate that he is truly a superb master, notably with photos showing a tense Ezra Pound, a young and attractive Truman Capote against a background of dense vegetation suggesting the South, Alberto Giacometti among his sculptures, Matisse with a bonnet like an old wise man, Rouault in clothes too big for him looking like a sad clown and other famous people in their surroundings such as Cartier Bresson's friend André-Pierre de Mandiargues with whom he discovered the world and women.
His photos are full of details and force the spectator to stare at them during a long time to such an extent that a story would immediately unravel in his mind.
After all Cartier Bresson proves to be a writer as well as an artist with his camera.