Henri Cartier-Bresson in Athens
THE GOD’S EXHIBITION
Well, it's simple. Some people in their field have been unsurpassed in every sense of the word.
In photography that man was undoubtedly HCB.
LIKE A CHILD IN THE MUD
You can understand the excitement of a small child that possessed me when the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition at the Basil & Elise Goulandris museum opened its doors to the public.
Basil and Elise Goulandris were personal friends of HCB and Martine Franck, so close in fact that HCB himself inaugurated the museum's wing in Andros, back in 1987.
THE EXHIBITION
What was unique about the exhibition was that several pictures were unpublished until they were shown in Athens.
The exhibition was divided into two distinct sections: "Greece" and "Decisive Moment" and consisted of 116 magical images.
The first section consists of 40 images of the great photographer from his three trips to Greece, in 1937, 1953 and 1961.
The second section is dedicated to the shocking album "The Decisive Moment" and, although the images are universal masterpieces of photographic art, the awe one feels standing in front of them is beyond description.
I would be remiss not to mention the several historical documents that were presented, such as an article by Walker Evans and letters by Robert Capa, who described the "Decisive Moment" as the "Bible for photographers"!
The tour was equally useful and one of the amazing facts one learns was that HCB rarely cropped his photos. In a total of 116 pictures, he had cropped - just barely - only 2.
A happy fella
WELL SAID
HCB has so many wonderful quotes about photography that this fact alone is enough to show how much he had conquered the medium. I agree with everything he had said, but the one that I think represents me perfectly is this:
“It doesn’t matter what kind of an event it is, because every event is worthwhile in its own right.”
The New York Times, “Cartier-Bresson, a True Man of the Eye”, by Walker Evans
Images taken with an iPhone. Used with the kind permission of the Basil and Elise Goulandris Museum.
