Manhattan, New York, Etats-Unis, 1935

In a street in Manhattan, two men are sat. Idle, they seem to be killing time each in their own way: one in the foreground is asleep, his head in his arms, the other is smoking, lost in thought. Their raggedy, stained clothes signal they are poor.

At a time when Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and other photographers document the poverty at the time of the Great Depression, Henri Cartier-Bresson is also in the United States. With the carefreeness of the foreigner discovering America, he spends a whole year capturing the working class' daily struggle by taking numerous portrait pictures in the streets, in a spontaneous, bold manner, as he does here in New York.

Manhattan, New York, États-Unis, 1935 is presented for the first time as part of the Pinault Collection in the monographic exhibition Henri Cartier-Bresson. Le Grand Jeu at Palazzo Grassi in Venice, in 2020.