Valencia, Spain, 1933
Gelatin silver print
Image 8 ¼ × 12 ½ in
Photographer's stamp on verso
November 24, 2025
This tour de force of a photograph shows the evidence of Cartier-Bresson's then-recent study of Cubism in Montparnasse. The fracturing of space here is so complete that it might take a moment to reconcile the passages in the picture as all being a part of one continuous film negative. The large number seven that has been sliced down its middle is strongly evocative of the use of collaged text in Synthetic Cubism, and the ring around the seven is echoed by the round glasses worn by the mustachioed man. The leap towards abstraction is furthered by the way that the glinting light on his glasses reduces one of the lenses to a bright white circle. Cartier-Bresson had only been making photographs for a couple years when he created this picture, but he credited his time as a student of modern painting with André Lhote in Paris as a study of "photography without a camera".
