[Leica] Leica Gallery and the Puddle Jumper

[lew1716 at gmail.com (Lew Schwartz)]

As Philippe discovered in the Christes' lot notes quoted in your email, HCB
had adopted his full frame only practice prior to printing La Gare with
only 2 exceptions("une des deux seules images"): The La Gare photo itself
and another of Cardinal Pacelli. There's no need to speculate about what he
may have done or why since it is discussed openly.

The note goes on to explain that the puddle frame was largely ignored by
him (shot several years earlier) until he re-evaluated his work for his
solo MoMA show which opened in Feb, 1947 (my birth month and year),
although the scrap book version dates from the previous year. I thought it
was a known fact that the MoMA show marked its first public appearance, so
I was surprised to read it's only "l'un des premiers tirages de cette
photographie," ie there are other prints extant

My French is a little rough, Philippe may offer corrections.

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 10:47 PM, Mark Rabiner <mark at rabinergroup.com>
wrote:
> I do think they 're talking about two different versions of the same neg
> which had been printed. And by the way was likely he himself at this point
> printed it. First he printed it more or less full frame which had the
blurry
> fence in it at the left end of the image. They he moved the enlarger up
and
> was able to crop out the blurry fence and turn it into a vertical instead
of
> horizontal image.
>
> This thing of an image shot vertical and ending up as a horizontal is a
> thing which does happen a lot to photographers working in the 20th century
> in 35mm. If not by them then by a picture editor.
>
> And by the way despite what a thing said yesterday on HCB's mode or
working
> printing full frame black border has never stopped a photo editor from
> cropping a picture. Many just take the face out no mater who or what is
> going on. They put their own black border on later if they feel like it.
>
> - - from my iRabs.
> Mark Rabiner
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/
>
>
>> From: Philippe Amard <philippe.amard at sfr.fr>
>> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
>> Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 20:04:25 +0200
>> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Leica] Leica Gallery and the Puddle Jumper
>>
>> Lot Notes
>> Cette photographie est une des deux seules images (l'autre ?tant celle
>> du Cardinal Pacelli) qu'Henri Cartier-Bresson a, d?s la prise de vue,
>> d?cid? de recadrer; il la prend l'objectif bloqu? par une palissade
>> qu'il a imm?diatement supprim?e au premier tirage. Cette photographie
>> fut tir?e pour la premi?re fois en 1946 par Henri Cartier-Bresson afin
>> de pr?parer son exposition organis?e en f?vrier 1947 au MoMA de New
>> York. Le tirage pr?sent? ici a ?t? r?alis? ? New York en 1946; c'est,
>> avec celui du Scrapbook, l'un des premiers tirages de cette
>> photographie.
>>
>>
>
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/LotDetailsPrintable.aspx?intObjectID=549419
>
> 4