Images à la Sauvette was conceived by Tériade (pseud. of Elfstratios Eleftheriades), editor of Minotaure and founder of Verve, who made a number of deluxe illustrated books with artists such as Matisse, Miró, and Léger. The photographs in this collection perfectly illustrate Cartier-Bresson's notion of 'l'instant décisif'.
In his preface Cartier-Bresson writes 'To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression... if the shutter was released at the decisive moment, you have instinctively fixed a geometric pattern without which the photograph would have been both formless and lifeless.'

First edition; large 4to (360 × 269 mm, 14¼ x 10½ in); black-and-white photographs printed in gravure by Draeger, text by Cartier-Bresson, design by Tériade and Marguerite Lang; plain endpapers, printed white paper-covered boards illustrated after a design by Matisse in black, blue and green, very minor toning to spine, a close to fine copy, scarce thus; [154]pp.

Regards sur un siècle de photographie à travers Le Livre 99; The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century pp134–5; The Photobook: A History I, pp208–9; The Open Book pp154–5; 802 photo books from the M + M Auer collection p343.