Henri Cartier-Bresson. Cina 1948-49 / 1958

The exhibition was made possible through the collaboration of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation and brings together an exceptional body of photographs and archival documents from the French photojournalist: more than 100 original prints along with vintage magazine publications, documents and letters from the HCB Foundation’s collection.

An unprecedented excursus recounting two key moments in China’s history: the fall of the Kuomintang and the establishment of the communist regime (1948-1949) and Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” (1958).

An important moment in the history of world photojournalism, experienced through the personal approach of the master Cartier-Bresson, who first highlighted-through the eye of his lens-important themes of change in contemporary Chinese history, managing to present to the Western world even aspects kept hidden by regime propaganda such as the exploitation of human resources and the omnipresence of militias.

On November 25, 1948, “Life” magazine commissioned Henri Cartier-Bresson to report on the “last days of Beijing” before the arrival of Mao’s troops. The planned two-week stay would last ten months, mainly in the Shanghai area.
Cartier-Bresson would document the fall of Nanjing, ruled by the Kuomintang, and then find himself forced to stay for four months in Communist Party-controlled Shanghai, finally leaving the country a few days before the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China (Oct. 1, 1949).

A unique style capable of capturing the immediacy and truthfulness of the “decisive instant.” In this perspective, the use of black and white in his photographs allows him to highlight the form and substance of reality. Each of his shots is thus able to capture the contemporaneity of things and life.