An exhibition with selections from The Breck Collection of Photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson is now on display at the UCR Library.

Free and open to the public, the exhibition, “Picturing the World: The Work of Henri Cartier-Bresson” is open in the Reading Room of the Special Collections and University Archives Department, located on the fourth floor of the Tomás Rivera Library. Visitors can attend Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. from Monday, Oct. 18 through December 17, 2021.

In November 2019, Special Collections received a generous donation from Dennis and Pamela Beck of thirty eight vintage prints created by the renowned French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson. The COVID-19 campuswide closure forced SCUA to delay the launch of this exhibition until campus reopened in fall 2021.

“UCR Special Collections & University Archives was privileged to receive the Beck Collection of Photographs,” said Cherry Williams, Director of Distinctive Collections. “Chronicling decisive moments of human life around the world, Cartier Bresson’s work epitomizes a clarity of vision and intellectual rigor that few can rival. We are delighted to be able to share these wonderful photographs in this exhibition.”

Cartier-Bresson, an early pioneer of wartime photojournalism in the 1940s, was also a seminal figure in the establishment of humane, spontaneous photojournalism as an art form. About his work, Cartier-Bresson wrote: “The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box… To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.”

All members of the UC Riverside community are invited to explore the work of this masterful photographer on the fourth floor of the Rivera Library.