Michel Frizot – författare

Marcel Gautherot (1910-96) is regarded by many as one of the most significant French photographers. Yet his work is relatively little known and even less published. The most famous part of his work is the body of some 3,000 images documenting the construction of Brasilia 1958-1960. This, and other images he took of this extraordinary place until the 1970s, is widely appreciated as a high point of 20th-century architectural photography.Gautherot began an education in architecture but very soon took up photography as well. He travelled extensively in France and abroad and visited Brazil and Peru for the first time in 1939, before being drafted into the French army on the outbreak of World War II. Upon demobilisation in summer 1940 he returned to Brazil and made Rio de Janeiro his home for the rest of his life.The new book Marcel Gautherot: The Monograph is the first ever comprehensive book on Gautherot's entire work as a photographer. It features some 200 of his striking pictures from all stages of his career, superbly reproduced in tritone printing. The images are complemented by essays on his affinity for modern architecture, his contribution to the history of photography, and on his attachment to Brazil.

In December 1948, Henri Cartier-Bresson travelled to China at the request of Life magazine. He stayed for ten months and captured some of the most spectacular moments in China’s history: he photographed Beijing in ‘the last days of the Kuomintang’, and then headed back to Shanghai, where he recorded the new regime’s takeover. Moreover, in 1958, Henri Cartier-Bresson was one of the first Western photographers to go back to China to explore the changes that had occurred over the preceding decade. The ‘picture stories’ he sent to Magnum and Life on a regular basis played a key role in Westerners’ understanding of Chinese political events. Many of these images are among the most significant photographs in Cartier-Bresson’s oeuvre; his empathy with the populace and sense of responsibility as a witness making them an important part of his legacy.Henri Cartier-Bresson in China allows these photographs to be re-examined along with all of the documents that were preserved: the photographer’s captions and comments, contact sheets and abundant correspondence, as well as the published versions that appeared in both American and European magazines. A welcome addition to any photography lover’s bookshelf, this is an exciting new volume on one of the 20th century’s most important photographers.