Henri Cartier-Bresson, born in 1908, wanted to become a painter and became one of the most famous photographers of the twentieth century. The man of the “decisive moment” told stories in pictures. As a reporter he travelled the whole world and found himself at the focal points of world history: in the Spanish Civil War, in Gandhi’s India, in the China of the young Mao. Three years in German captivity as a prisoner of war deeply shaped Cartier-Bresson’s way of seeing. In 1947 he was a founding member of the photo agency Magnum. At sixty he stopped photographing altogether to devote himself again to painting and drawing. Pierre Assouline has recorded his life with passion and verve, researching his family and artistic roots.