Talk:Henri Cartier-Bresson

There is still some confusion about the date of HCB's death. Most sources say he died on Monday, August 2, but some (American) sources claim he died on Tuesday morning. All sources concur that he was buried on Wednesday. - Karl Stas 22:26, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The Telegraph obituary (not American) says August 3. - Nunh-huh 02:51, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I checked the French press. Le Monde and Le Figaro say he died on Monday, Libération says Tuesday! - Karl Stas 08:15, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Until it is resolved then, it isn't appropriate to report a certain date. "Died 2 or 3 August 2004" may be the best we can do. - Nunh-huh 08:34, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The contradicting media reports are based on two press releases, one by the French Ministry of Culture and another by Magnum Photos. The former puts the time of death on Monday, the latter on Tuesday morning. It is not entirely clear which version is endorsed by the family. The original text of the press releases is nowhere to be found. Le Monde refers to "sources close to the family". BBC first reported that HCB died on Monday, but now they only say he died "weeks short of his 96th birthday". - Karl Stas 10:14, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Le Monde has changed the date to August 3. Unfortunately, the web site of the HCB Foundation is unreachable and his bio on the Magnum site doesn't mention his death yet. Meanwhile, User:Simonides and User:194.51.20.124 have changed the date in the article, apparently without reading the talk page first. - Karl Stas 08:13, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

And it is not clear where he died: Isle-sur-la-Sorgue (Vaucluse) or in his house in Céreste. --Maha 13:02, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think we can now decide in favour of August 3 (time) and Céreste (place). - Karl Stas 16:59, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For the record. I heard he was dead on August 4. Ericd 19:49, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No, he was buried that day. - Karl Stas 09:54, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

All the sources that I came across said "early morning Tuesday" ie 3 August, which may have been 2 August in America depending on the exact time (which I'm not aware of); since it was, apparently, Tuesday in France, we should retain 3 August until we have some evidence to the contrary. -- Simonides 05:29, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

At first, BBC and most French media said he died on Monday (local time). But the Magnum press release puts the time of death at Tuesday, 9:30am (local time). - Karl Stas 09:54, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The current revision of the introductory paragraphs contains the following statement (emphasis added): Cartier-Bresson exclusively used Leica 35 mm rangefinder cameras equipped with normal 50mm lenses or occasionally a telephoto for landscapes. It strikes me as slightly unusual that he would have used a telephoto lens for landscapes. The conventional wisdom is that landscapes are best captured with normal or wide-angle lenses (of course, the conventional wisdom may very well be wrong). Is HCB's use of telephoto lenses a documented fact? MarkSweep 05:52, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Telephoto lenses can be used for landscape photography, but I don't know if HCB did this. A web search reveals the sentence was taken from Photo-Seminars.com. - Karl Stas 13:35, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Apologies for saving in the wrong language, instead of my own minority language. I was about to fix it when I found, to my pleasant surprise, it was already done. Thanks for your patience.Meabhar 21:00, 24 Sept, 2004 (UTC).

Our article makes some pretty specific claims about Cartier-Bresson's retirement from photography: "Cartier-Bresson retired from photography in the early 1970s, and by 1975 no longer took pictures other than an occasional private portrait; he said he kept his camera in a safe at his house and rarely took it out." The only source in the paragraph is this Independent article, which only contains the much less specific claim, "...in the 1970s, as he reached retirement, he decided to devote his energies to drawing..."

This seems to have been added in this unsourced 2006 edit by Rossp (later banned for copyright violations).

The assertion seems to be disproven by a number of later photographs - this 1976 photo from Paris, this landscape of Newbiggin-by-the-Sea and this shot of Newcastle gravestones from 1978, and from 1979 this shot from Turkey and this from Switzerland. Possibly some of these could be misdated, but the date of the Newcastle and Newbiggin visit seems to be fairly well-established, and most do not seem to fit the description of "private portrait".

Does anyone know where our article's retirement narrative has come from, and can anyone source it or anything like it?

His International Center of Photography profile gives the much less specific assertion that "In 1966 he left Magnum, which remained his agent, and devoted himself to drawing" - I think everyone is agreed that he shifted his main energy to drawing in the late 1960s or 1970s, but our current assertion that he almost completely stopped taking photographs in 1975 seems both unsourced and essentially disproven. TSP (talk) 17:12, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Uncited paragraph that redundantly informs us about the titles, especially before I cut it down a little. Do we need this? Is the information therein accurate? EnjoyLightEnjoyTruth (talk) 04:53, 16 December 2025 (UTC)