Henri Cartier-Bresson

03.07 - 27.10.2024

This summer, the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation joins forces with the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation to honour the extraordinary artist couple Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) and Martine Franck (1938-2012), with an extensive tribute that will go on display in both its museums, in Athens and in Andros, from July 3 to October 27, 2024.

The B&E Goulandris Foundation in Athens will present a detailed tribute to Cartier-Bresson that will consist of two exhibitions.

Henri Cartier-Bresson – Images à la sauvette (The Decisive Moment)

The first exhibition will feature the 74 photographs that make up the book Images à la sauvette (The Decisive Moment), that was published upon the initiative of Tériade (Stratis Eleftheriades) with the help of Matisse by publishers Simon & Schuster.

This unique book was published in 1952 and its photographs travel audiences to different parts of the world such as France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Mexico, Morocco, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Burma, Indonesia and China. It has been described by Robert Capa as “A Bible for photographers”, a quote that remains to this day the most famous reference to Cartier-Bresson’s work.

Henri Cartier-Bresson – Greece

The second exhibition will present, for the first time, all the photographs taken by Cartier-Bresson during his travels in Greece in 1937, 1953 and 1961. Through these photographs visitors will have the opportunity to travel to Athens, the Cycladic islands, the most important Greek archaeological sites as well as the most remote parts of the Peloponnese, Thessaly and Epirus in the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s. Approximately 80% of the exhibition will feature works that will go on display for the first time globally, accompanied by rich and previously unpublished archive material such as letters, contact sheets and more.

Henri Cartier-Bresson and his wife Martine Franck were dear friends of Basil and Elise Goulandris. Cartier-Bresson inaugurated the new wing of the Goulandris Foundation’s Museum of Contemporary Art in Andros in 1987, exhibiting 150 photographs that he had selected. Franck is credited with one of the most striking portraits of Elise Goulandris, taken in Gstaad in 1999, one year before Elise’s passing. With their photographic lens and their special technique, both Cartier-Bresson and Franck have each left their own indelible mark on art.

The exhibitions are under the auspices of the French Ministry of Culture.

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