Images à la sauvette

Henri Cartier-Bresson
Images à la sauvette

Photographs: Henri Cartier-Bresson

Text: Henri Cartier-Bresson

Publisher: Verve

Pictures: 26

Year: 1952

Comments: Illustrated hardcover made by artist Henri Matisse. 37 by 24,5cm . First French edition (published without jacket and with the booklet who is part of the book), 1952. Gravure printing. Beautiful gravure reproductions for this collectible copy. A fresh and nice copy very well preserved.

Images à la sauvette is one of the most famous books in the history of photography, assembling Cartier-Bresson’s best work from his early years. Published in 1952, it was lavishly embellished with a collage cover by Henri Matisse. Its English title "The Decisive Moment" has defined the notion of the famous formal peak in which all elements in the photographic frame accumulate to form the perfect image. Paired with the artist’s humanist viewpoint, Cartier-Bresson’s photography has become part of the world’s collective memory.

The book and its images have since influenced generations of photographers.