FYI PARIS - Legendary French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who traveled the world for more than half a century capturing human drama with his camera, has died at age 95.
Cartier-Bresson shot for Life, Vogue and Harper's Bazaar magazines, and his work inspired generations of photographers. Cartier-Bresson became a French national treasure, though he was famously averse to having his own picture taken or to giving interviews.
The French Culture Ministry said Cartier-Bresson died Monday and that funeral services were held Wednesday. Media reports said he died in l'Ile-sur-Sorgue in the rural Vaucluse region in southeastern France.
In a statement, French President Jacques Chirac said of Cartier-Bresson: "With him, France loses a genius photographer, a true master, and one of the most gifted artists of his generation and most respected in the world."
"He was perhaps the greatest photographer of the 20th century," said John Morris, who met Cartier-Bresson five days after the Germans left Paris at the end of World War II. In 1947, Cartier-Bresson and three others founded the celebrated agency Magnum Photos; Morris was Magnum's executive editor and Cartier-Bresson's lifelong friend.
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