The new Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit will visit Chicago, San Francisco and Atlanta

Henri Cartier-Bresson, master French photographer and pioneer of photojournalism in the 20th century, will have his first exhibit in the United States in nearly 30 years when a retrospective of his work opens at the New York Museum of Modern Art on Sunday.

“Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century” will include 300 or so of the famed photographer’s most iconic images, along with special presentations, lectures and several documentary films. It is the first retrospective of his work since he passed away in 2004 at the age of 95.

The exhibit will include many photographs never seen before by the public, including his lesser-known work from the United States.  There will also be giant maps that trace Bresson’s world travels (noting when and where certain works were produced), exhibit sections split by his work in the “Old” and “New Worlds,” as well as portraits of many of the century’s most celebrated artists and thinkers, like Jean Paul Sartre, Henri Matisse and Truman Capote.

Bresson, who once said “there is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment,” lived a life capturing the decisive moments around him. His uncropped, black-and-white images managed to find the subtle beauty buried within the “real” world people experienced everyday.

The Bresson exhibit runs at the MOMA through June 28, and from there it will head to Chicago in July, San Francisco in October and Atlanta in early 2011.