Shanghai
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 24.13 × 35.88 cm (9 1/2 × 14 1/8 in.) sheet: 30.16 × 39.69 cm (11 7/8 × 15 5/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Ann Ford Doyle
Accession Number
2015.120.3
Art Historical Context
Henri Cartier-Bresson’s *Shanghai* (1948) is a quintessential gelatin silver print, capturing the raw energy of mid-20th-century photojournalism. Shot during the Chinese Civil War, as Nationalist forces evacuated the city amid the Communist advance, this 24.13 × 35.88 cm image (sheet: 30.16 × 39.69 cm) embodies the chaos and human drama of a nation in flux. Cartier-Bresson, a founder of Magnum Photos and master of candid street photography, documented this pivotal moment from Shanghai’s bustling waterfront, preserving a slice of history now held in the National Gallery of Art’s Department of P...
About the Artist
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) is widely regarded as one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century, a founding figure of modern photojournalism and the originator of the concept of the 'decisive moment' — the instant when form, meaning, and geometry align in a single unrepeatable image. Born on 22 August 1908 in Chanteloup-en-Brie, France, into a wealthy textile family, he wa...