Photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson Dead at 95

Henri Cartier-Bresson - Gare St. Lazare, Paris 1932
Image from Artnet.

If you have taken art classes, the men and women that are talked about are so iconic and historical, it's hard to believe that they had a life beyond their most important past accomplishments. By being great or being recognized as great' they leave the world of ordinary people to become "influences". And while their most important works add worth and value to everything they make afterwards, it is as if the old "great" works render anything after that point incapable of ever being recognized as great themselves.

Which is my way of saying that I did not realize Cartier-Bresson had not died some time ago.

From his New York Times Obituary...

"Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the major artists of the 20th century, who used his tiny hand-held 35-millimeter Leica camera to bear humane witness to many of the century's signal events, from the Spanish Civil War to the German occupation of France to the partition of India to the Chinese revolution to the student uprisings of 1968, has died in France, the Ministry of Culture announced today. He was 95."