French government destroys 551 images by Henri Cartier-Bresson

British Journal of Photography - 9 Jul, 2009

More than 500 images taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson have been destroyed or thrown away by the French government, Le Monde newspaper revealed today

The images were lost in 1991, however, for the first time in two decades, Martine Franck, a photographer and widow of Cartier-Bresson has revealed new details about the loss to the French newspaper.

Of the 551 photos that have been destroyed or thrown away, 426 of them formed part of Cartier-Bresson’s first exhibition in France in 1955. For the show, which took place in the Louvre museum, the images were glued on cardboard and fixed to wooden panels. The prints were made in 1954 and included some of the photographer’s work in Moscow, America, India and China.

The exhibition travelled around the world for another five years. In 1960, Cartier-Bresson donated the prints to the French government, which stocked them in the National Library until 1968. That year, the photographer asked for the images to be moved to the National Centre of Contemporary Arts (CNAC) to prevent the ‘images from being buried,’ Cartier-Bresson said at the time.

The shots, including an additional 104 photos from the 1970 ‘In France’ exhibition and 21 portraits, remained in the CNAC’s basement until 1991. In an attempt to move the images to a new location that the French government realised they had suffered water damage. The CNAC asked Cartier-Bresson whether it could destroy the images. ‘I remember, I’m with Henri,’ says Franck. ‘Two people from the Culture Ministry ask him if they can have the entire exhibition destroyed. Henri, la mort dans l’âme, agrees.’ The images were, allegedly destroyed.

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