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Auction archive: Lot number 36

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Estimate
US$80,000 - US$120,000
Price realised:
US$161,000
Auction archive: Lot number 36

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Estimate
US$80,000 - US$120,000
Price realised:
US$161,000
Beschreibung:

Henri Cartier-Bresson Córdoba, Spain 1933 Gelatin silver print. 7 1/8 x 4 3/4 in. (18.1 x 12.1 cm) Signed and annotated 'c/o Julian Levy Gallery/ 602 Madison Ave/ New York City/ USA' in ink on the verso.
Provenance Julien Levy Collection, New York Purchased by the Special Photography Acquisitions Fund, 1979 Literature Bulfinch Press, Tête à Tête, pl. 37 Galassi, Henri Cartier-Bresson The Modern Century, p. 97 Galassi, Henri Cartier-Bresson The Early Work, p. 131 Catalogue Essay At the age of 25, and under the influence of Surrealism, Henri Cartier-Bresson started taking pictures with a brownie box camera. In 1932, he began shooting with a Leica, which he took on a journey through Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany and Italy, and again on a backpacking expedition in Italy and Spain in 1933. The hand-held Leica allowed him ease of movement while attracting minimal notice as he wandered in foreign lands, taking images that matched his bohemian spontaneity with his painterly sense of composition. Cartier-Bresson did not plan or arrange his photographs. His practice was to release the shutter at the moment his instincts told him the scene before him was in perfect balance. This he later famously titled “the decisive moment” - a concept that would influence photographers throughout the 20th century. While in Spain Cartier-Bresson took the fundamental and famous image of a chance encounter offered here. Córdoba, Spain, 1933 (lot 36) depicts the serendipitous juxtaposition of two women: one real, the other made of paper and wheat paste; one squinting and posturing as she faces solidly forward, the other fully blinded by a paper mask, and turned sideways to better advertise a corset that seems impossibly narrow for a flesh-and-blood woman to wear. Characteristic of Cartier-Bresson’s early work, this well-observed tableau captures drama and absurdity in everyday life, found on what the Surrealists called “aimless walks of discovery." As Cartier-Bresson later said, he was influenced “by the conceptions of [André] Breton, [which] satisfied me a great deal; the role of spontaneous expression and of intuition and, above all, the attitude to revolt ... in art but also in life.” Shortly after taking this image, Cartier-Bresson had the first of two exhibitions with Julien Levy, a pioneering New York dealer in Surrealism and photography generally. Active in the New York intellectual scene and friend to many artists including Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp Levy had opened his gallery in 1931 with an exhibition of photography; throughout the 1930s and ‘40s, he would maintain an emphasis on avant-garde photography, showing both European and American examples and ranging into vernacular and historical subjects as well. Levy showed Cartier-Bresson solo in 1933, and then paired his photographs with those of Walker Evans and Manuel Àlvarez Bravo in 1935. This print, which Levy acquired at the time from the photographer, is trimmed and mounted for exhibition and was almost certainly put on view at one of the two shows. The Art Institute owns a second vintage print, given by Cartier-Bresson to musician Nicolas Nabokov when he came to New York for the second show; it is not trimmed or mounted. In 1975-1978, the Art Institute acquired the core of the Levy gallery’s remaining inventory, working directly with Levy himself, who was living in modest retirement in Connecticut. During the course of the acquisition, in 1976, the museum mounted a groundbreaking exhibition: Photographs from the Julien Levy Collection Starting with Atget. That exhibition changed the course of collecting photography, concentrating for the first time exclusively on prints made at the time of the original photographs, and often by the artists themselves. The term “vintage print,” not yet widely used, gained vast new meaning as the singularity and exquisite beauty of these first prints came to the fore. Cartier-Bresson in particular had stopped making his own prints after the 1930s—in fact the majority of what he printed in that decade was for exhibitions such as those held at the Levy Gallery. Other prints of this images are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and

Auction archive: Lot number 36
Auction:
Datum:
1 Oct 2014
Auction house:
Phillips
New York
Beschreibung:

Henri Cartier-Bresson Córdoba, Spain 1933 Gelatin silver print. 7 1/8 x 4 3/4 in. (18.1 x 12.1 cm) Signed and annotated 'c/o Julian Levy Gallery/ 602 Madison Ave/ New York City/ USA' in ink on the verso.
Provenance Julien Levy Collection, New York Purchased by the Special Photography Acquisitions Fund, 1979 Literature Bulfinch Press, Tête à Tête, pl. 37 Galassi, Henri Cartier-Bresson The Modern Century, p. 97 Galassi, Henri Cartier-Bresson The Early Work, p. 131 Catalogue Essay At the age of 25, and under the influence of Surrealism, Henri Cartier-Bresson started taking pictures with a brownie box camera. In 1932, he began shooting with a Leica, which he took on a journey through Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany and Italy, and again on a backpacking expedition in Italy and Spain in 1933. The hand-held Leica allowed him ease of movement while attracting minimal notice as he wandered in foreign lands, taking images that matched his bohemian spontaneity with his painterly sense of composition. Cartier-Bresson did not plan or arrange his photographs. His practice was to release the shutter at the moment his instincts told him the scene before him was in perfect balance. This he later famously titled “the decisive moment” - a concept that would influence photographers throughout the 20th century. While in Spain Cartier-Bresson took the fundamental and famous image of a chance encounter offered here. Córdoba, Spain, 1933 (lot 36) depicts the serendipitous juxtaposition of two women: one real, the other made of paper and wheat paste; one squinting and posturing as she faces solidly forward, the other fully blinded by a paper mask, and turned sideways to better advertise a corset that seems impossibly narrow for a flesh-and-blood woman to wear. Characteristic of Cartier-Bresson’s early work, this well-observed tableau captures drama and absurdity in everyday life, found on what the Surrealists called “aimless walks of discovery." As Cartier-Bresson later said, he was influenced “by the conceptions of [André] Breton, [which] satisfied me a great deal; the role of spontaneous expression and of intuition and, above all, the attitude to revolt ... in art but also in life.” Shortly after taking this image, Cartier-Bresson had the first of two exhibitions with Julien Levy, a pioneering New York dealer in Surrealism and photography generally. Active in the New York intellectual scene and friend to many artists including Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp Levy had opened his gallery in 1931 with an exhibition of photography; throughout the 1930s and ‘40s, he would maintain an emphasis on avant-garde photography, showing both European and American examples and ranging into vernacular and historical subjects as well. Levy showed Cartier-Bresson solo in 1933, and then paired his photographs with those of Walker Evans and Manuel Àlvarez Bravo in 1935. This print, which Levy acquired at the time from the photographer, is trimmed and mounted for exhibition and was almost certainly put on view at one of the two shows. The Art Institute owns a second vintage print, given by Cartier-Bresson to musician Nicolas Nabokov when he came to New York for the second show; it is not trimmed or mounted. In 1975-1978, the Art Institute acquired the core of the Levy gallery’s remaining inventory, working directly with Levy himself, who was living in modest retirement in Connecticut. During the course of the acquisition, in 1976, the museum mounted a groundbreaking exhibition: Photographs from the Julien Levy Collection Starting with Atget. That exhibition changed the course of collecting photography, concentrating for the first time exclusively on prints made at the time of the original photographs, and often by the artists themselves. The term “vintage print,” not yet widely used, gained vast new meaning as the singularity and exquisite beauty of these first prints came to the fore. Cartier-Bresson in particular had stopped making his own prints after the 1930s—in fact the majority of what he printed in that decade was for exhibitions such as those held at the Levy Gallery. Other prints of this images are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and

Auction archive: Lot number 36
Auction:
Datum:
1 Oct 2014
Auction house:
Phillips
New York
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