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Gold Rush. At the end of the day, shoving in front of a bank to buy gold. Last days of the Kuomintang, Shanghai, December 23, 1948. © Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation / Magnum Photos

For the first time, the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation is dedicating its new space entirely to the master of photography whose name it bears. The exhibition "Henri Cartier Bresson. China 1948-1949 / 1958 "reports on the two major tours that the photographer made in China and these two key moments in history. The first corresponds to the establishment of the communist regime. And the second to 10 years of the Chinese Revolution. Muriel Maalouf.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was 40 when the American magazine Life sent him in November 1948 for ten days in Beijing, on the eve of the coming to power of Maoist troops. It will remain ten months. And hundreds of images far from the events.

The photographer testifies societal changes. The human is already at the heart of his image. In the exhibition, we are surrounded by glances, by vibrating beings, as the photographer's talent for capturing life is great: men settled in a tavern, amazed children looking at paintbrushes in the window of an antique dealer or this simple of spirit on the edge of the Forbidden City.

► See also: Henri Cartier-Bresson, the eye of the century was formed in Africa

Photos that mark the beginning of a great career and the birth of the Cartier-Bresson style: a poetry of the everyday, sometimes strange, distanced.

China does not leave it anytime soon. He returns there ten years later, in 1958. And despite a trip led by a guide who leads him from dams to model villages to show him the results of the Revolution, he succeeds in showing the exploitation of human labor and the grip militias. A report that earned him once again an international success.

  • "Celebrations of the 9th anniversary of the People's Republic, Beijing, October 1, 1958.
    © Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation / Magnum Photos

  • Construction of the swimming pool of Peking University by the students, June 1958.
    © Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation / Magnum Photos

► Henri Cartier Bresson. China 1948-1949 / 1958, exhibition at the Henri Cartier Bresson Foundation, until 2 February 2020

► Also read: "Girls" in China, interview with photographer Luo Yang