Caumont Centre d'Art

To mark the bicentenary of the birth of photography, Caumont-Centre d’Art is dedicating its winter exhibition to Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004), one of the most important photographers of the 20th century.

Nicknamed “the eye of the century”, he managed, through the exceptional acuity of his gaze, to capture its very essence.

The exhibition proposes to follow the photographer's European wanderings through more than two hundred photographs, mixing his most famous shots with images rarely, if ever, shown. Henri Cartier-Bresson was a convinced European.

For nearly 70 years, from his beginnings in the 1930s until the end of his life, he never stopped travelling across Europe.

It is through the people he met during his travels, their gazes, their gestures, their celebrations and their customs, that he paints a vibrant portrait of a territory in full transformation.

The resulting shots reveal the singularity of each of these peoples, while highlighting what deeply connects them. Unique and sincere, they help to fuel the imagination of a multi-faceted Europe still under construction.

A major witness to the events of the 20th century, he immortalised the great political and social upheavals of his time.

He travelled the world and captured pivotal episodes of contemporary history through the lens of his camera, such as the last days of Gandhi in India, the victory of the Chinese communists, Russia during the “Thaw”, or the United States in the 1960s, where he paid particular attention to the fight against racial segregation.

Europe nevertheless remained his anchor point. He criss-crossed it, from the post-war period marked by ruins and traumas, to the Cold War where the beginnings of the European Union were taking shape. His lens became the witness of a continent in reconstruction.

The Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition thus explores the work of the “eye of the century” through an original prism, that of