Cartier-Bresson: A Question of Colour at Somerset House

It is well-known that Cartier-Bresson was disparaging towards colour photography, which in the 1950s was in its early years of development; his reasoning was based both on the technical and aesthetic limitations of the medium at the time. Featuring 10 Cartier-Bresson photographs never before exhibited in the UK alongside over 75 works by 14 international acclaimed photographers, this extensive showcase will illustrate how photographers working in Europe and North America adopted and adapted the master's ethos famously known as the ‘decisive moment' to their work in colour. Though they often departed from the concept in significant ways, something of that challenge remained: how to seize something that happens and capture it in the very moment that it takes place.