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Faking It: In Conversation

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Art Object
Program Information

Faking It: In Conversation

Program information

Mia Fineman, Assistant Curator, Department of Photographs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, leads a conversation between Mark Osterman, Jerry Uelsmann, and Amy Dresser.

Recorded October 14, 2012

Part of a Sunday at the Met program held in conjunction with Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop, on view October 11, 2012–January 27, 2013.

The exhibition is made possible by Adobe. The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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Shanghai

Henri Cartier-Bresson  (French, Chanteloup-en-Brie 1908–2004 Montjustin)

Date:
1948, printed ca. 1960
Medium:
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions:
25 x 37 cm (9 13/16 x 14 9/16 in.)
Classification:
Photographs
Credit Line:
Purchase, Evelene and Robert Wechsler Gift and Charina Foundation Inc. Gift, 2002
Accession Number:
2002.419
Rights and Reproduction:
© Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos

This artwork is not on display

  • Description

    In December 1948, Life magazine sent Cartier-Bresson to China to document the turbulent transition from Kuomintang to Communist rule. This photograph captures the pandemonium incited by the currency crash of that month, when the value of paper money plummeted and the Kuomintang decided to distribute forty grams of gold per person. Thousands waited in line for hours as the police made only a token gesture toward maintaining order, resulting in ten deaths by suffocation. Cartier-Bresson deftly captured the desperation and claustrophobia of the scene by compressing the mass of people within a tight frame as they propelled themselves toward the bank building just beyond the right edge of the picture.

  • Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

    Inscription: Inscribed in blue ink on print, verso, TL: "Inflation en 48"; C: "Henri Cartier-Bresson // Magnum 125 Fbg St Honoré // E241591 8-"; BL to BR: "Shangai 48. Pendant les derniers jours de suprématie du Kuomintang la monnaie s'effondant, le gouvernement mit de l'or sur le marché. Le foule se precipita vers les banques. Sept personnes mourient etouffées"; inscribed in pencil on print, verso, BL: "Chine Histoire"; stamped in blue ink on print, verso, CL: "Please return to // MAGNUM PHOTOS // 125 Faubourg Saint-Honoré // Paris - VIIIe"

  • Provenance

    Artist/Magnum; [...]; Maurice Michelet, early 1970s (in lot of 250 prints); [Simon Lowinsky, New York, 2001]

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