Henri Cartier-Bresson
Images a la Sauvette
(The Decisive Moment)
Original 1952 French Edition
Images a la Sauvette. Original French edition of The Decisive Moment.
Photographs and text by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Editions Verve, Paris,
1952. 158 pp. First edition. Folio. Hardcover. Cover illustration by
Henri Matisse. No dust jacket as issued. 126 black and white gravure
reproductions.
Published simultaneously in English as The Decisive Moment
(a more literal translation of the title--and possibly more
evocative--would be 'Images on the Run'), this is, without doubt, one of
the holy grails of photobook collecting. It contains images chosen from
the whole of Cartier-Bresson's career prior to the 1950s. As Martin
Parr and Gerry Badger write in The Photobook: A History, vol. 1 this
renowned volume is more than a monograph; "it has overriding unifying
factors that elevate it into a great photobook. The first is the concept
of the 'decisive moment' itself, which defines the elegance of
Cartier-Bresson's imagery: the instant when all the elements in the
picture-frame come together to make the perfect image--not the peak of
action necessarily, but the formal peak....[It] is one of the greatest
of all photobooks." From Photoeye.com/auctions/Auction.cfm?id=5890
A good plus copy of a notoriously fragile book. Beautiful, clean pages. Boards show some scuffing, soiling and scratches. Upper corners bumped and frayed. Small stain to the front board just below the I in Images. The backstrip is absent. Some tanning to boards. Wear to
the edges. Internally, hinges sound. Binding is still basically sound. Amazing photography.
A wonderful and rare book printed in gorgeous gravure.