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If you happen to be in Paris, celebrate in person at the location he chose as repository for his photographic legacy.  Thanks to the foundation that he, his wife and daughter created, you can do so here.  If, like most people, you are not in Paris then their website will have to suffice for now:

“The 20th century was the century of the image …To tell Henri Cartier-Bresson’s story and to unravel his work is essentially to tell the story of a look.

Throughout the 20th century, this roaming, lucid eye has captured the fascination of Africa in the 1920’s, crossed the tragic fortunes of Spanish republicans, accompanied the liberation of Paris, caught a weary Gandhi just hours before his assassination, and witnessed the victory of the communists in China.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was also Jean Renoir’s assistant on three major films, an artist who sees himself an artisan but who nevertheless established Magnum, the most prestigious of all photo agencies, and who immortalised his major contemporaries : Mauriac in a state of mystical levitation, Giacometti, Sartre, Faulkner or Camus, and as many more all taken at the decisive moment, all portraits for eternity.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson, l’œil du siècle by Pierre Assouline Folio / Gallimard

Biography

1908 Conceived in January in Palermo, Sicily. Born 22 August at Chanteloup, Seine-et-Marne. Educated at the Lycée Condorcet, Paris. No formal higher education.

1923 Develops a passionate interest in painting and aspects of Surrealism.

1927–28 Studies painting under André Lhote.

1931  Spends one year in the Ivory Coast, where he takes his first photographs. Back in Europe, concentrates on photography.

1932  Published by Charles Peignot in Arts et Métiers Graphiques.

1933  Exhibits at the Julien Levy Gallery, New York. His photographs are subsequently shown at the Ateneo Club in Madrid. Travels in Europe with André Pieyre de Mandiargues and Leonor Fini. Spends a year in Mexico with an ethnographic expedition. Exhibits with Manuel Alvarez Bravo at the Palacio de Bellas Artes de Mexico in 1935.

1935  Spends some time in the USA, where he takes his first photographs of New York and first experiments with film, with Paul Strand.

1936  Works as second assistant to Jean Renoir on “Une partie de campagne” (A Day in the Country).

1937  Directs a documentary on the hospitals of Republican Spain, “Victoire de la vie” (Return to Life), also a documentary for the Secours Populaire, “L’Espagne vivra”. Louis Aragon provides him with an introduction to Regards, where he publishes a number of photographic reportages, including coverage of the coronation of George VI.

1939  Joins Jacques Becker and André Zvoboda as an assistant on Jean Renoir’s “La Règle du jeu” (The Rules of the Game).

1940  Taken prisoner by the Germans, escapes at his third attempt in February 1943.

1943 Works for MNPGD, a secret organization set up to help prisoners and escapees. For Editions Braun, takes a series of photographic portraits of writers and artists (Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Bonnard, Claudel, Rouault etc).

1944–45 Working as part of a team, photographs the Liberation of Paris. Directs “Le Retour” (The Return), a documentary on the repatriation of prisoners of war and detainees.

1946 Spends over a year in the USA working on the so-called ‘posthumous’ exhibition of his work, proposed by the Museum of Modern Art in New York at a time when he was believed to have died in the war. Travels in the USA with John Malcolm Brinnin.

1947 With Robert Capa, David Seymour (Chim), William Vandivert and George Rodger founds the cooperative agency Magnum Photos.

1948–50 In the Far East for three years, in India for the death of Gandhi, China for the last six months of the Kuomintang and the first six months of the People’s Republic and in Indonesia for independence.

1952–53 Back in Europe.

1952 His first book, “Images à la sauvette”, cover by Matisse, is published by Tériade.

1954  Publication by Robert Delpire of his book on Balinese theatre, “Les Danses à Bali”, with a text by Antonin Artaud, marking the beginning of a long collaboration with Delpire. He is the first photographer to be allowed into the USSR during the period of détente.

1955  First exhibition in France at the Pavillon de Marsan in the Louvre, which subsequently travels all over the world. Tériade publishes « Les Européens », cover by Miró.

1958–59 Returns to China for three months for the tenth anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.

1963 Returns to Mexico for the first time in thirty years, staying for four months. Life Magazine sends him to Cuba.

1965  Spends several months travelling in Japan.

1966  Returns to India. Terminates his active working relationship with Magnum Photos, although the agency distribution retains his archives. As before, his photographs are printed by Pictorial Service.

1967  Commissioned by IBM to create ‘Man and Machine’. Returns to India.

1969-70 Spends a year travelling around France for Reader’s Digest and publishes a book, “Vive la France”, to accompany the exhibition “En France” staged at the Grand Palais in 1970. In the USA directs two documentaries for CBS News.

1972 Returns to the USSR.

1975 First exhibition of drawings at the Carlton Gallery, New York. Concentrates on drawing but continues to practise portrait and landscape photography.

1980 Returns to India.