Portrait of Henri Cartier-Bresson

Birthday profile

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer and painter (died 2004)

Born
August 22, 1908
Died
August 3, 2004
Zodiac sign
Leo
Birth year
1908

About Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French: [ɑ̃ʁi kaʁtje bʁɛsɔ̃]; 22 August 1908 – 3 August 2004) was a French humanist photographer and artist. He was considered a master of candid photography, and was an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography and viewed capturing what he named the decisive moment as the essence of the very best pictures. Cartier-Bresson was one of the founding members of Magnum Photos in 1947. In the 1970s he largely discontinued his photographic work, instead opting to paint. == Early life == Henri Cartier-Bresson was born in Chanteloup-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, France. His father was a wealthy textile manufacturer, whose Cartier-Bresson thread was a staple of French sewing kits. His mother's family were cotton merchants and landowners from Normandy, where Henri spent part of his childhood. His mother was descended from Charlotte Corday. The Cartier-Bresson family lived in a bourgeois neighborhood in Paris, Rue de Lisbonne, near Place de l'Europe and Parc Monceau.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

The world when Henri Cartier-Bresson was born

Henri Cartier-Bresson was born in 1908. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1908

  • Best-selling book"Mr. Crewe's Career" – Winston Churchill

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentChicago Cubs win World Series
  • Top headlineFord Model T goes on sale — $850
  • Technology milestoneFord Model T — affordable automobile for the masses
  • Defining fadAutomobile craze
  • World population~1.68B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderTheodore Roosevelt
  • U.S. population87.4M

1908 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Henri Cartier-Bresson's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19082026
Population87.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.