Dessau, Germany

c. 1943

The third escape succeeds: a farm in Touraine

He twice tried to escape the camp and failed, and was punished with solitary confinement; the third attempt succeeded — he hid on a farm in Touraine and obtained false papers that let him travel in France.

1943–1944

In the underground: helping escapees and photographing the occupation

In France he worked for the underground, helping other escapees and secretly working with other photographers to cover the occupation and then the liberation of France.

1944

The liberation of Paris and portraits of Matisse and Camus

In 1944 he photographed the liberation of Paris and made portraits of Henri Matisse, Albert Camus, and Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie.

1944–1945

The film “Le Retour” on returning prisoners

At the end of the war the American Office of War Information asked him to make a documentary, “Le Retour” (“The Return”), about returning French prisoners and displaced persons.

early 1947

Magnum Photos is founded

In early 1947, with Robert Capa, David Seymour, William Vandivert and George Rodger, he founded Magnum — a cooperative picture agency owned by its members; he was assigned India and China, and later also travelled to Pakistan, Burma, Indonesia, Mexico, Japan, Cuba, Canada and the USSR.

1947

The MoMA retrospective and his first book

His film spurred a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, which opened in 1947 and later toured the country; it was accompanied by his first book, “The Photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson”, with texts by Lincoln Kirstein and Beaumont Newhall.