Henri Cartier-Bresson, Helen Levitt: Mexico / Mexique

A visual travelogue-cum-dialogue between two giants of modernist photography

This publication presents a dialogue between the Mexican photographs of Helen Levitt (1913–2009) and those of Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004). The two photographers first met in New York in the spring of 1935; Cartier-Bresson had just spent a year in Mexico, while Levitt had only just embarked on the portraits of New York street life for which she would become celebrated. Levitt was enthralled by the Frenchman’s Mexican photographs, which she saw at the exhibition Documentary & Anti-Graphic Photographs at the Julien Levy Gallery that same year. In 1941, fascinated by Cartier-Bresson’s work, Levitt decided to visit Mexico with Alma Agee, wife of novelist James Agee, and their son Joel. Throughout her long photographic career, this was Levitt’s sole trip abroad. This volume gathers around 60 prints by Cartier-Bresson and Levitt, as well as documents retracing their respective steps in Mexico