The photo-essay—a group of pictures about a single subject,
usually accompanied by captions—was a staple of photojournalism
throughout Cartier-Bresson’s career. This section of the
exhibition presents two such essays in abbreviated form, with
the photographer’s original captions. In 1958 Cartier-Bresson
undertook an ambitious campaign to photograph the Great Leap
Forward, Mao Tse-tung’s intensive program of forced
industrialization. He worked steadily for four months in China,
and although he was closely monitored by the authorities, he
returned with a very substantial body of work, rich in concrete
detail. The resulting story was widely disseminated through
magazines in Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy, the
Netherlands, and Switzerland, as well as the United
States—usually with splashy color spreads similar to those in
the issue of Life presented here. In 1964 nearly 50 photographs
made in 1958 appeared in Cartier-Bresson’s small paperback book
China: Photographs and Notes on Fifteen Months Spent in