Masks and Banners in Anti-US Shanghai Parade

Henri Cartier-BressonWW-1949-142466

1949·Gelatin silver print·Image/paper: 34.1 × 23.2 cm (13 7/16 × 9 3/16 in.)

<p>In this photograph of a parade celebrating the anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s founding, a man dressed as Uncle Sam walks down the Bund, a historic waterfront in Shanghai that was home in the 1940s to foreign consulates, trading houses, and banks. He is followed by “servants” wearing dog masks. Henri Cartier-Bresson captured this image while covering decolonization in Asia, traveling with his wife, Ratna Mohini, to India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and China.</p> <p>While photographing Beijing in 1948, Cartier-Bresson was expelled from the city after its takeover by the People’s Liberation Army. He fled south to Shanghai, where he witnessed the collapse of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government and the city’s embrace of Communist rule.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1949
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image/paper: 34.1 × 23.2 cm (13 7/16 × 9 3/16 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Henri Cartier-Bresson

Artist

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Photography

In his seminal 1952 monograph, The Decisive Moment, Henri Cartier-Bresson wrote, “To take a photograph means to recognize, simultaneously and within a fraction of a second, both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning.” Cartier-Bresson’s keen eye for such “decisive moments” – both on the grand scale of international politics and in the most ordinary moments of everyday life – have made him one of the most influential and original figures in the history of photography. A pioneer in the realms of photojournalism, street photography and portraiture, Cartier-Bresson’s iconic black and whites capture the drama, mystery and poetry of 20th century life with inimitable specificity and immediacy.

Céreste, France

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