But I would walk 500 miles… to MoMA’s New Exhibit

MoMA opened the doors to their exhibition of world renowned photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) today to the public. A stunning portrayal of raw human emotion, historical importance and an air of sweet nostalgia that would drive softness into even the coldest cut-throat Manhattanite heart.

In 1930, Frenchman Henri Cartier-Bresson began a voyage, at the piping youthful age of twenty-two. For close to fifty years he traveled across the globe incessantly, capturing his visions with a handheld Leica. A charming grin, a rich Rolodex of contacts, and the upbringing from a haute bourgeois family, Henri Cartier-Bresson maneuvered the system, paving the way for modern photojournalism.

“Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century” is organized by Peter Galassi, the MoMA’s’s chief curator of photography. Cartier-Bresson’s work is arranged in 13 themes, from the Old Worlds: East, Old Worlds: France to the New Worlds: USSR, and New Worlds: USA .

From a French country woman leaning over a heap of sardines to hand a customer a few salty fish cradled in paper to a woman leaning over endless pages of financial data in a New York Bankers Trust office, there is a universal quality of resounding life, struggle, and perseverance in these works that is not to be missed.

“Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century” is open April 11 until June 28, 2010. It travels to the Art Institute of Chicago (July 24 to Oct. 3); the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Oct. 30 to Jan. 30); and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (Feb. 19 to May 15).

Visit MoMA for more information.

*Lead Photo: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Title: Brie, France, 1968

* Second Photo: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Title: Market in the Rue Longue, Marseille, 1954

* Third Photo: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Title: Bankers Trust, New York, Marseille, 1960