Henri Cartier-Bresson: À Propos de Paris (2012)

The gaze of a master upon a city he never stopped observing.

This elegant photobook is a tribute to the city that shaped one of the 20th century’s greatest photographic minds. Published by Schirmer/Mosel in 2012, À Propos de Paris brings together Henri Cartier-Bresson’s most enduring images of Paris—a city he wandered with his Leica for decades, capturing its rhythm, character, and contradictions with the instinct of a poet and the timing of a journalist.

The selection spans multiple decades, from the 1930s onward, including many of Cartier-Bresson’s most iconic scenes—couples by the Seine, workers on lunch breaks, solitary figures crossing cobblestoned streets—as well as lesser-known moments that reveal the quieter side of a city in perpetual motion. With a foreword by Jean Clair, this book offers not only a photographic archive, but also a personal and cultural document of a city observed with rare consistency and affection.

This volume is not merely a retrospective; it is a window into Cartier-Bresson’s visual relationship with Paris, and into the formative years of a man who would redefine reportage and street photography for generations to come.