Stabile Mobile Calder©, Arnaud Carpentier
The Gianadda Foundation in Martigny, Switzerland, offers the public an extraordinary opportunity to admire the principal works of one of the twentieth century's most outstanding photographers: Henri Cartier-Bresson. The images were chosen from the many travel snapshots and portraits of artists from the Szafran Collection of the Pierre Gianadda Foundation: travels in the 1930s, France views, travels to India and Mexico, encounters with Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, and many others.
Two hundred black and white shots retrace thirty years of emotions, telling the story of the long friendship that linked three families: the Bressons (Henri and his wife Martine), the Szafrans (the artist Sam, his wife Lilette, and their son Sébastien) and the Gianadda (Léonard and Annette). The photos donated to the Szafran family are now part of the collection of the Swiss Foundation.
The famous photographer met the young painter in 1972 during an exhibition dedicated to contemporary art in Paris. Increasingly fascinated by drawing, Henri asks Sam to become his teacher. Regularly, Henri Cartier-Bresson gives his friend Szafran carefully chosen photographic prints.
Most of the 226 photographs donated are autographs and testify to mutual affection and admiration. After the photographer died in 2004, the Szafran family decided to offer the collection to Léonard and the Pierre Gianadda Foundation to celebrate the friendship that united them.
Left. Alberto Giacometti, Rue d'Alésia, Paris, 1961 - © Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos - Collection Szafran, Fondation Pierre Gianadda | Right. Derrière la gare Saint-Lazare, Place de l'Europe, Paris, 1932 - © Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos - Collection Szafran, Fondation Pierre Gianadda
The birth of the Gianadda Foundation is also singular. After his brother Pierre's death in the summer of 1976, Léonard Gianadda decided to build a Foundation dedicated to art on the remains of a Gallo-Roman temple. Since then, the Martigny museum has welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors worldwide every year.
The objectives of the Pierre Gianadda Foundation are simple. They combine the memory of the brother who died too soon with the desire to promote the city's history and offer temporary cultural events, both musical and pictorial.
Fondation Pierre Pianadda©, Georges André Cretton, Martigny
Besides being universally recognized among the most outstanding photographers of the twentieth century, Henri Cartier-Bresson had a fundamental role in the theorization of the act of photographing, translated, among other things, into the famous definition of the "decisive moment".
All subsequent photographers are in some way indebted to him, at least for that tireless dedication to photographic cutting that captures the moment, which is so characteristic of him.
Even FpArtOnline, aiming to propose interesting artworks, dedicates a section of its site to all lovers of Photography: an art that has now reached, like the others, important goals in terms of recognition, visibility, and relevance in the art market.
