Behind the Gare Saint Lazare, 1932
Gelatin silver print, printed later
Image: 14 × 9 ⅜ inches
Sheet: 16 × 12 inches
Signed in ink with artist blind emboss stamp recto
March 3. 2025
Clearly it was a wet day at the Saint-Lazare train station in Paris. It’s hard to imagine that the anonymous man’s leap across the flooded plaza had a dignified landing, but in Cartier-Bresson’s classic photograph, he is forever preserved in a moment of perilous grace. The picture has become a shorthand for Cartier-Bresson’s vastly influential idea of “The Decisive Moment”, to the point where it is not only famously great itself, but a stand-in for a whole category of famous and great photographs—not bad for a split second moment in the life of a rail commuter.
In the background, posters can be seen advertising a dance performance with music by Alexander Brailowsky, who was one of the world’s premier concert pianists in the years between the wars. Sly observers might note the way that the man’s bounding stride, reflected below as almost a graphic image, echoes the dancers on the posters, wryly suggesting that he appears to be trying out for a part in Brailowsky’s dance troupe.
