“Henri Cartier-Bresson. China 1948-49 | 1958”

Henri Cartier-Bresson is considered the pioneer of photojournalism. This new solo exhibition presents the Chinese reportages for which he is remembered as an absolute master of the so-called “decisive moment.”

It brings together an exceptional corpus of photos and documents of the French photo reporter: over 100 original prints together with publications of magazines of the time, documents, and letters coming from the collection of the Fondation HCB. An unprecedented excursus describing two key moments in the history of China: the fall of the Kuomintang (1948-1949) and Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” (1958).

Through the eye of his lens, Cartier-Bresson captured important changes in contemporary Chinese history and showed the Western world the exploitation of human resources and the omnipresence of militia, and other little-known aspects of the Chinese regime.