Robert Capa (; born Endre Ernő Friedmann, ; October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954) was a Hungarian-American War photography and Photojournalism. He is considered by some to be the greatest combat and adventure photographer in history.Kershaw, Alex. Blood and Champagne: The Life and Times of Robert Capa, Macmillan (2002)
Friedman had fled political repression in Hungary when he was a teenager, moving to Berlin, where he enrolled in college. He witnessed Adolf Hitler's rise to power, which led him to move to Paris, where he met and began to work with his professional partner Gerda Taro, and they began to publish their work separately. Capa's deep friendship with David Seymour-Chim was captured in Martha Gellhorn's novella Two by Two. He subsequently covered five wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across Europe, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and the First Indochina War, with his photos published in major magazines and newspapers.
During his career he risked his life numerous times, most dramatically as the only civilian photographer landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He documented the course of World War II in London, North Africa, Italy, and the liberation of Paris. His friends and colleagues included Ernest Hemingway, Irwin Shaw, John Steinbeck and director John Huston.
In 1947, for his work recording World War II in pictures, U.S. general Dwight D. Eisenhower awarded Capa the Medal of Freedom. That same year, Capa co-founded Magnum Photos in Paris. The organization was the first cooperative agency for worldwide freelance photographers. Hungary has issued a stamp and a gold coin in his honor.
He was killed when he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam.
He moved to Berlin, where he enrolled at Berlin University where he worked part-time as a darkroom assistant for income and then became a staff photographer for the German photographic agency, Dephot. It was during that period that the Nazi Party came into power, which made Capa, a Jew, decide to leave Germany and move to Paris.
After moving to Paris, he became professionally involved with Gerta Pohorylle, later known as Gerda Taro, a German-Jewish photographer who had moved to Paris for the same reasons he did. The two of them decided to work under the alias Capa at this time, and she contributed to much of the early work. However, the two of them later separated aliases, with Pohorylle quickly creating her own alias 'Gerda Taro', and began publishing their work independently. Capa and Taro developed a romantic relationship alongside their professional one. Capa proposed and Taro refused, but they continued their involvement. He also shared a darkroom with French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, with whom he would later co-found the Magnum Photos cooperative. "Robert Capa’s Longest Day", Vanity Fair, June 2014
It was during that war that Capa took the photo now called The Falling Soldier (1936), purported to show the death of a Republican soldier. The photo was published in magazines in France and then by Life and Picture Post.Ingledew, John. Photography, Laurence King Publishing (2005) p. 184 The authenticity of the photo was later questioned, with evidence including other photos from the scene suggesting it was staged. Picture Post, a pioneering photojournalism magazine published in the United Kingdom, had once described then twenty-five year old Capa as "the greatest war photographer in the world."
The next year, in 1937, Taro died when the motor vehicle on which she was traveling (apparently standing on the footboard) collided with an out-of-control tank. She had been returning from a photographic assignment covering the Battle of Brunete.
Capa accompanied then-journalist and author Ernest Hemingway to photograph the war, which Hemingway would later describe in his novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). Life magazine published an article about Hemingway and his time in Spain, along with numerous photos by Capa. "Life Documents Hemingway's New Novel with War Shots", Life magazine, January 6, 1941
In December 2007, three boxes filled with rolls of film, containing 4,500 35mm negatives of the Spanish Civil War by Capa, Taro, and Chim (David Seymour), which had been considered lost since 1939, were discovered in Mexico. "The Capa Cache", New York Times, January 27, 2008 "The Mexican Suitcase, Rediscovered Spanish Civil War Negatives by Capa, Chim, and Taro" , International Center of Photography "The Fascinating Story of The Mexican Suitcase" , ORMS In 2011, Trisha Ziff directed a film about those images, entitled The Mexican Suitcase.
Capa subsequently stated that he took 106 pictures, but later discovered that all but 11 had been destroyed. This incident may have been caused by Capa's cameras becoming waterlogged at Normandy, although the more frequent allegation is that a young assistant accidentally destroyed the pictures while they were being developed at the photo lab in London. Simon Kuper, "Interview: John Morris on his friend Robert Capa", Financial Times, May 31, 2013. Retrieved June 1, 2013. However, this narrative has been challenged by Coleman and others. In 2016, John G. Morris, who was picture editor at the London bureau of Life in 1944, agreed that it was more likely that Capa captured 11 images in total on D-Day. The 11 prints were included in Life magazine's issue on June 19, 1944, with captions written by magazine staffers, as Capa did not provide Life with notes or a verbal description of what they showed.
The captions have since been shown to be erroneous, as were subsequent descriptions of the images by Capa himself. For example, men described by Life as infantrymen taking cover behind a Czech hedgehog obstacle during the assault landing were in fact members of Gap Assault Team 10 – a combined US Navy/US Army demolition unit tasked with blowing up obstacles and clearing the way for landing craft after the beach had been secured. Lt. (jg) H. L. Blackwell, Jr. Report on Naval Combat Demolition Units [NCDUs] In Operation "Neptune" as part of Task Force 122 (5 July, 1944) (February 19, 2019).
Capa suggested they go there together and collaborate on a book, with Capa documenting the war-torn nation with photographs. The trip resulted in Steinbeck's A Russian Journal, which was published both as a book and a syndicated newspaper serial. Photos were taken in Moscow, Kyiv, Tbilisi, Batumi and among the ruins of Stalingrad.Railsback, Brian E., Meyer, Michael J. A John Steinbeck Encyclopedia, Greenwood Publishing Group (2006) p. 50 They remained good friends until Capa's death; Steinbeck took the news of Capa's death very hard.
Capa also acted in the film Temptation (1946 film), playing a supporting role. Allegedly, Capa received the part after visiting his friend Charles Korvin on the set. Capa claimed that he could play the part better than the actor who had originally been cast, and after speaking with the director was cast in the final film.
He was 40 at the time of his death. He is buried in plot #189 at Amawalk Hill Cemetery (also called Friends Cemetery), Amawalk, Westchester County, New York along with his mother, Julia, and his brother, Cornell Capa.
At the age of 18, Capa moved to Vienna, later relocated to Prague, and finally settled in Berlin: all cities that were centers of artistic and cultural ferment in this period. He studied at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik from 1931 until 1933, when the Nazi Party instituted restrictions on Jews and banned them from universities. He then moved to Paris and in 1934 met Gerda Pohorylle, a German Jewish refugee. "André Friedman", as he called himself then, taught Gerda photography, and together they created the name and image of "Robert Capa". At that time, both photographers published their work under the pseudonym of Robert Capa. Gerda later took the name Gerda Taro and became successful in her own right. She travelled with Capa to Spain in 1936 intending to document the Spanish Civil War. In July 1937, Capa traveled briefly to Paris while Gerda remained in Madrid. She was killed near Brunete during a battle. Capa, who was reportedly engaged to her, was deeply shocked and never married.
In February 1943, Capa met Elaine Justin. They fell in love and the relationship lasted until the end of the war. Capa spent most of his time in the frontline. Capa called the redheaded Elaine "Pinky," and wrote about her in his war memoir, Slightly Out of Focus. In 1945, Elaine Justin broke up with Capa; she later married Chuck Romine. Some months later, Capa became the lover of the actress Ingrid Bergman, who was touring in Europe to entertain American soldiers.
p. 176 In December 1945, Capa followed her to Hollywood. The relationship ended in the summer of 1946 when Capa traveled to Turkey.
His younger brother, Cornell Capa, also a photographer, worked to preserve and promote Robert's legacy as well as develop his own identity and style. He founded the International Fund for Concerned Photography in 1966. To give this collection a permanent home, he founded the International Center of Photography in New York City in 1974. This was one of the foremost and most extensive conservation efforts on photography to be developed. Indeed, Capa and his brother believed strongly in the importance of photography and its preservation, much like film would later be perceived and duly treated in a similar way. The Overseas Press Club created the Robert Capa Gold Medal in the photographer's honor.
Capa is known for redefining wartime photojournalism. His work came from the trenches as opposed to the more arms-length perspective that was the precedent. He was famed for saying, "If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough."
He is credited with coining the term Generation X. He used it as a title for a photo-essay about the young people reaching adulthood immediately after the Second World War. It was published in 1953 in Picture Post (UK) and Holiday (US). Capa said, "We named this unknown generation, The Generation X, and even in our first enthusiasm we realised that we had something far bigger than our talents and pockets could cope with."
In 1947, for his work recording World War II in pictures, U.S. general Dwight D. Eisenhower awarded Capa the Medal of Freedom CitationGeorge Stevens Jr., "Robert Capa: A Photographer at War", Washington Post, September 29, 1985 The International Center of Photography organized a travelling exhibition titled This Is War: Robert Capa at Work, which displayed Capa's innovations as a photojournalist in the 1930s and 1940s. It includes vintage prints, contact sheets, caption sheets, handwritten observations, personal letters and original magazine layouts from the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. The exhibition appeared at the Barbican Art Gallery, the International Center of Photography of Milan, and the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in the fall of 2009, before moving to the Nederlands Fotomuseum from October 10, 2009, until January 10, 2010. Travelling exhibitions: This Is War! Robert Capa at Work , International Center of Photography
In 1976 Capa was posthumously inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum.
The Boston Review has described Capa as "a leftist, and a democrat—he was passionately pro-Loyalist and passionately anti-fascist ..." During the Spanish Civil War, Capa travelled with and photographed the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), which resulted in his best-known photograph.
The British magazine Picture Post ran his photos from Spain in the 1930s accompanied by a portrait of Capa, in profile, with the simple description: "He is a passionate democrat, and he lives to take photographs."
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