Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/12/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]This is a copy of a post I made to the LUG a few years ago, but I thought it might be appropriate to post it again May the copyright gods forgive me. This is a letter to the editor written by Henri Cartier Bresson published in the November/December 1997 issue of American Photo magazine. I have copied it here completely. The most interesting paragraph is the second to last. My interjections are in [square brackets]. I am assuming the letter itself is © copyright Henri Cartier Bresson and/or American Photo. ____ "Yesterday, just before leaving Provence, I received the issue of American Photo [Sept/Oct 1997] that gives such an important space to what has kept me busy for some 70 years. I want to thank you for it and to transmit my thanks to everyone who took the trouble to write about my shooting. "May I express one reservation-the text relating to money matters, i.e., print sales. Would you please stress in your next issue that my representative for collector prints is Helen Wright, 135 E. 74th St., New York, NY 10021, and that all sales of these prints-to individual collectors and dealers alike-are made through her. "Would you also please also point out that as far as photography is concerned, I only enjoyed, and still do, the actual shooting. Printing has never been a pleasure. Real [italicized in original] vintage prints, meaning that I printed them with trouble by myself at about the time the photograph was taken were few. Many of these were given to Julien Levy, who have me my first U.S. exhibit. As far as I can remember, I also gave several prints to Lincoln Kirstein, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, Monroe Wheeler, Dorothy Norman, and other close friends as souvenirs, tokens of friendship. If I had not, I should try and print again for them. Anyhow, one does not keep accounts of friendships. "All the so-called vintage prints I have heard of that are on the market-those with the Magnum agency stamp-were printed in a rush for magazine publication, and I never [italicized in original] gave them even a glance of approval. After publication they remained in the drawers of the archives of various magazines or agents waiting for future publication. The engraving prints for my books are put aside and have never been for sale. As far as I am concerned, printing is a profession. Printers spend their time in the dark in a communion of vision with the photographer, and I then sign the result of this team work-a real collaboration. "I am sorry to bother you with all this, but I felt it necessary to clarify my thoughts about the few prints I made myself before the war, or just after, as a token of friendship." - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html