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PUBLISHER
Steidl

BOOK FORMAT
Slip, Hardcover, 11 x 14.75 in. / 160 pgs / illustrated throughout.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2014 p. 4   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783869307886 TRADE
List Price: $125.00 CDN $170.00

AVAILABILITY
Out of stock

TERRITORY
NA ONLY

“For new generations of photographers and artists who have missed out on experiencing many of the world’s important books first hand, it cannot be stressed enough how important this new edition of The Decisive Moment is for a contemporary audience.” —Jeffrey Ladd, Time LightBox

  

STEIDL

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment

Text by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Simon, Clément Chéroux.

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment

One of the most important photobooks of the 20th century, scrupulously reproduced as a facsimille of the original

Within the canon of European photography books it would be difficult to find one more famous, revered and influential as Henri Cartier-Bresson's The Decisive Moment, wrote Jeffrey Ladd in Time LightBox, in a feature on Steidl's new edition of this ultimate photobook classic. Originally published in 1952, this collection of Cartier-Bresson's best work from his early years was embellished with a collage cover by Henri Matisse. The book has since influenced generations of photographers, while its English title defined the notion of the famous peak in which all elements in the photographic frame accumulate to form the perfect image—not the moment of the height of the action, necessarily, but the formal, visual peak. This new publication—the first and only reprint since the original 1952 edition—is a meticulous facsimile of the original book that launched the artist to international fame, with an additional booklet on the history of The Decisive Moment by Centre Pompidou curator Clément Chéroux.

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) was born in Chantelou-en-Brie, France. He initially studied painting and began photographing in the 1930s. Cartier-Bresson cofounded Magnum in 1947. In the late 1960s he returned to his original passion, drawing. In 2003 Cartier-Bresson established the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris, one year before his death.


"Place de l’Europe, Paris," 1932, is reproduced from Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment.

PRAISE AND REVIEWS

Time Lightbox

Jeffrey Ladd

Within the canon of European photography books it would be difficult to find one more famous, revered and influential as Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Images a la Sauvette or, as the American edition is titled, The Decisive Moment.

For new generations of photographers and artists who have missed out on experiencing many of the world’s important books first hand, it cannot be stressed enough how important this new edition of The Decisive Moment is for a contemporary audience. “Robert Frank’s The Americans and Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment were published within a few years of each other in the 1950s and both books have since become the blueprint for the modern photography book,” Steidl says. “When you look at them, the design, the sequencing of the photos and the printing are – even 60 years later – much better than most of the printed books on the market today. My intention in reprinting both has been to analyze the contents of the books, the intention of the photographers, and to print them in exactly the same way, so the next generation can see how these fine books were made and secure the future of photography publishing.”

TIME Lightbox

Jeffrey Ladd

Within the canon of European photography books it would be difficult to find one more famous, revered and influential as Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Images a la Sauvette or, as the American edition is titled, The Decisive Moment.

Its value as an out-of-print collectable has risen over the past few decades resulting in keeping this masterpiece out of the hands of many younger photographers. Finally, after 62 years, it is again seeing the light of day this December with a gorgeous facsimile from the German publishing house Steidl.

Mother Jones

Mark Murrmann

One of the most influential (and yet hardest to find) photobooks in print gets the Steidl gold-standard reprint treatment here. Available for the first time in sixty years, Henri Cartier-Bresson's Decisive Moment still sizzles with taut, kinetic energy. From the Matisse-designed cover through the tightly edited image selection, it's a brilliant mix of street photography and reportage, photos that, despite being perfectly composed, feel very alive. Many of them have evolved from classics to cultural wallpaper. The book reminds us of Cartier-Bresson's genius—just in case you needed a reminder.

The Guardian

Sean O'Hagan

The Decisive Moment has finally been republished. Sixty-two years on, it still carries the weight of its initial importance – even if the notion of the decisive moment no longer holds sway as it once did; staged photography, conceptual strategies and digitally manipulated images have all but rendered it old-fashioned except to purists, photojournalists and street photographers.

The New York Times Arts Beat

Aurelien Breeden

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s iconic photography book, “The Decisive Moment,” has been republished, 62 years after the highly influential collection of his early work was first released.

Rangefinder

Libby Peterson

More than ten years after his passing, the renowned street and social documentary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson—who so famously coined the term “the decisive moment,” or the second when all of the compositional elements of a scene come into harmony—continues to charm, fascinate and inspire photographers worldwide. The Decisive Moment (Steidl), Cartier-Bresson’s book that was first published in 1952 by Simon and Schuster, is reentering the market. This latest edition, which will also be covered in Matisse cutouts like the original, highlights the photographer’s revered early work, and it will come with a booklet of an essay on the history of The Decisive Moment by Clément Chéroux, the Centre Pompidou curator.

Interview

Devon Ivie

With the winter months slowly waning away, what better time is there to grab a good book, a hot beverage, and lounge in bed on a chilly and blustery evening? Luckily for you, we went ahead and picked the most enticing coffee table books that will be released this month, which can be viewed in the slideshow above.

Wired

Krystal Grow

Diligently reproduced to the finest detail, Steidl seems to have resisted the urge to over embellish the new edition with unnecessary addendums. Cartier-Bresson likely would have dismissed an elaborate reconstruction of his book as crass and egregious. The Decisive Moment is about the aesthetics of coincidence, and the faith to follow intuition. Like every brilliant unexpected moment, things can never be truly recreated, but only faithfully retold.

One Thousand Words

Gary Cockburn

It's immediately obvious that The Decisive Moment is a hedonistic delight, at least if your idea of hedonism is flexible enough to extend to the tactile and visual pleasure of a photography book.

theartblog.org

Evan Paul Laudenslager

Reprinted to the exact specification of the original, including Henri Matisse’s collage cover design, Steidl’s care and craftsmanship is astounding. At 11.5” by 15”, it’s actually too large for my bookshelf. The spreads are sized according to the dimensions of the framelines of Cartier-Bresson’s beloved Leica camera, allowing for a single large image, two vertical images, or four smaller horizontal images to fit on each spread. The sequencing is seamless and affecting–it is one of the most immersive experiences I have ever had with a book. The book’s physical presence and high image quality demands not only respect for the work inside, but for it to be treated as a work of art in and of itself.

Spectrum Culture

Pat Padua

A decisively beautiful object that belongs in the library of anyone who cares about photography... From editing and sequencing to packaging, it’s a masterpiece.

The New York Times Online

James Estrin

Cartier-Bresson’s concept of the “decisive moment” — a split second that reveals the larger truth of a situation — shaped modern street photography and set the stage for hundreds of photojournalists to bring the world into living rooms through magazines.

Afterimage

Marjorie Backman

Cartier-Bresson captured people in a flash in a private or telling moment, rather than how they might formally present themselves, and in the process offered an essential truth about the human condition.

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment

STATUS: Out of stock

Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.

FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 11/14/2015

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment, Sunday on the banks of the Marne

Featured image is "Sunday on the banks of the Marne," 1938, by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Published in The Decisive Moment, one of the greatest, most influential photobooks of all time (featured this weekend in Teju Cole's photography column for the New York Times Magazine), it is one of the most iconic photographs of the twentieth century. "To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression," Cartier-Bresson wrote in the original 1952 edition. His words, published anew in Steidl's "meticulous facsimile of the original" remain inspiring. continue to blog


FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 11/10/2015

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment, Punjab India

In a 1952 review in the New York Herald Tribune, Philippe Halsman wrote of Henri Cartier-Bresson's groundbreaking The Decisive Moment, "Cartier-Bresson is perhaps the greatest living photographer. One hundred twenty-six memorable photographs are assembled here in a book of unusual beauty. The text, written by Cartier-Bresson himself, belongs to the most intelligent and lucid writing about photography." Featured spread, from Steidl's exquisite new edition, is captioned, "In Punjab, India, 1947. There is idleness and despair where people are gathered without homes At Kurukshetra camp they were given simple gymnastics to distract them, to work off their energies." continue to blog


FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYONLDS | DATE 11/9/2015

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment, Christian Bérard, Jean-Paul Sartre

Henri Cartier-Bresson's photographs of the openly homosexual French artist, illustrator and designer Christian Bérard in the First Hotel, Boulevard Garibaldi, Paris, 1932, and history-changing philosopher and critic Jean-Paul Sartre on the Pont des Arts, Paris, 1946, are just two of the canonical images reproduced in Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment, first published by Simon & Schuster in 1952 and now available in a pretty-much perfect new edition from Steidl. Our first shipment of this astonishingly impactful volume sold out immediately; we are delighted to be able to offer this title, whose notable cover illustration is by Henri Matisse and which Robert Cappa called "a bible for photographers," again, in time for the holidays. This is a book for every collection, and we cannot recommend it enough. continue to blog


FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/11/2018

'Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment' is Back in Stock!

'Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment' is Back in Stock!

Steidl's exquisite facsimile reprint edition of Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment (originally published in 1952 and long out-of-print) is back in stock! "Within the canon of European photography books it would be difficult to find one more famous, revered and influential as Henri Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment," Jeffrey Ladd writes on TIME Lightbox. "Its value as an out-of-print collectable has risen over the past few decades resulting in keeping this masterpiece out of the hands of many younger photographers. Finally… it is again seeing the light of day." continue to blog