| Capa, Chim, Taro and Their Spanish Negatives |
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From the “IMAGE HUNTERS” series Capa, Chim, Taro and Their Spanish Negatives in a lecture with a multimedia presentation “The Mexican Suitcase”, by Cynthia Young from the International Center of Photography in New York. 9 October 2011, 1 pm, Poznań, Aula Artis, School of Humanities and Journalism, Gen. T. Kutrzeby 10 – admission free, simultaneous translation from English provided  © International Center of Photography New YorkWord about an extraordinary find, a suitcase full of negatives, got out as early as 1995. Only in 2007, however, did it make its way to the International Center of Photography in New York. It turned out that this really was a suitcase that used to belong to Robert Capa, who left it in his studio in Paris when leaving Europe in 1939. It was to contain his negatives from the Spanish Civil War. Capa was convinced until his death that the suitcase had been irretrievably lost.  There is no way of saying how the suitcase made it to the Mexican ambassador to the French Vichy Government, Gen. Francisco Aquilar González. At any rate, with him it took a trip to Mexico. The local climate perfectly preserved its contents, which surpassed everyone’s wildest expectations: three boxes with 126 spools not only by Robert Capa, but also by Gerda Taro, his life companion (between 1934-37), and by his friend David Seymour a.k.a. Chim (from his original Polish name Szymin); two reels were attributed to Fred Stein. Most of the retrieved photographs, a total of 4,300 (!), were taken in Spain in 1936 and while the set does not include Capa’s legendary photography representing the falling soldier, it still constitutes a powerful documentary record of the everyday reality of the Spanish guerrillas, partly also of POW camps.  Specialists from New York-based Center of Photography, an institution which, interestingly, was set up by Robert Capa’s brother Cornell, exposed the negatives one by one. The effect of their work was first presented to the public on 24 September 2010, at an exhibition held until 8 May 2011. The show was curated by Cynthia Young, the supervisor of the entire “Mexican Suitcase” project.  Curator of the Poznań lecture: Monika Piotrowska, cooperation: Elżbieta Król Part-financing: Cooperation:   Co-organizer:  International Center of Photography (ICP) – a comprehensive New York research and education institution located in Midtown Manhattan. With a capacity of a few dozen thousand square meters of floor space, it holds an archive, museum, offices, and school (ICP School). It was founded in the wake of a rapid development of The Fund for Concerned Photography, set up in 1966 by the photographer Cornell Capa with a view to protecting the documentary legacy of his brother Robert Capa and other photographers of the Magnum Agency, as Werner Bischof and David Chim Saymour. ICP was set up in 1974 and had its headquarters in the famous “Museum Mile” on Fifth Avenue. As early as 1985, because of the constant expansion of the archive and exhibitions, it was necessary to open another facility in the Avenue of the Americas. At present, ICP has held over five hundred exhibitions gathering work by over three thousand photographers. It is first of all an institution holding one of the world’s most extensive photo collections. The permanent exhibit includes over 100,000 pictures, especially documentary photographs from the period 1930-2000. Robert Capa (b. 1913, Hungary; d. 1954, Indochina) One of the most talented and intriguing photographers of the 20th century. During his lifetime acclaimed as the greatest war photo journalist. An author of e.g. the icon of the Spanish Civil War, a photograph of a falling soldier. After his death, in connection with this very picture, accused of tampering with his photos. He was actually called Endré Ernő Friedmann (also André Friedmann) and came from a secularized family of Hungarian Jews. He assumed his American pseudonym in 1934 when an émigré in Paris (1933-39), in order to be better able to sell his photographs. Near Montparnasse he established ties with his community, e.g. with David Seymour (Szymin) a.k.a. Chim and the young Jewish employee of a photo agency Gerta Pohorylle, who assumed the pseudonym Gerda Taro. Taro and Capa shared the predicament of refugees from Germany, where they had known each other and worked. Between 1931-33 Capa studied political science in Berlin and at the same time was an assistant photographer in Ullstein Publishing House and the Dephot Agency and finally Dephot’s photo journalist until, unnoticed, he took pictures of Leon Trotsky in exile in Copenhagen. Gerda proved the greatest love of his life. They began to take pictures together and signed them as their joint projects. On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, both left for Spain many times, supporting the Republican cause. Capa’s pictures began to appear in the press since 1936, in which year he made the famous photograph of a soldier falling down, published soon afterwards as part of a larger series in the French periodical Vu. In mid-July 1937, the series was published also by American Life and London-based Picture Post. At the end of July that year Taro died of grave injuries. She had rejected Capa’s proposal a few months earlier. As an homage to Gerda, Robert Capa dedicated to her the album Death in the Making with Spanish photographs by both of them (1938). He left for China where he documented the Japanese invasion in a movie (1938). His fame as a wartime photo journalist was firmly established when he returned to take pictures of the defeat of the Republicans and the end of the Spanish Civil War as well as of Europe during World War II (1941-45). There he made, among others his legendary pictures depicting the landing of the Allied Forces in Normandy (1944). During the war he met Ernest Hemingway, later one of his closest friends. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 made him move to the USA and continue as a wartime photo journalist; after 1945 it appeared that he would simply become a photo journalist. In 1948 he went to the First Israeli-Arab War, having realized his dream of founding a photo agency. In 1947, together with Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour, George Rodger, and William Vanidyert he sets up Magnum Photos, an agency whose photographers were their own bosses. Capa became president of the company, managing it with “charm and determination” /John G. Morris/. Endowed with a fine sense of humor, unbridled imagination and extraordinary energy, he lived an eventful life among the greatest celebrities of his time. In 1947 he had an affair with Ingrid Begman and joined John Steinbeck to take pictures of everyday life in the Soviet Union. The following year he took pictures in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and after the Israeli war prepared a joint project on it with Irvin Shaw. He took portraits of artists and friends. He returned to a war zone after a long break in 1954, accepting a commission for footage from Indochina, where he was killed by a landmine. Gerda Taro (b. 1910, Germany; d. 1937, Spain) A German photographer born into a Polish family of Jewish immigrants from Galicia. Beautiful and educated, with a fluent command of a few languages, including Spanish, French and English, she is considered to be the first female wartime photo journalist who lost her life on the frontline. Born as Gerta Pohorylle, nicknamed Poho by her friends, she was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 for anti-Nazi activity. Immediately after leaving prison she left Germany and settled in Paris. She supported leftist German émigrés, e.g. Willy Brandt; in 1934 (1935?) she met the photographer André Friedmann a.k.a. Robert Capa. She became his assistant, agent and model. She fell in love with him and took her first pictures under his supervision. The pictures were often published together with Capa’s under his pseudonym. The inseparable couple left for Spain in 1936, from where they successfully sold to a few magazines and newspapers their stories with photos, published still under the name of Robert Capa, later signed as “Capa & Taro”. Both shot films for the American newsreel. In time she wanted more autonomy and rejected Capa’s proposal; they broke up in 1937. Taro was associated with a circle of European intellectuals such as Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell, involved in a kind of spiritual anti-fascist front for the sake of the Spanish Republic. The photographer signed a contract with the Ce Soir in Paris headed by the writer, poet, communist and Surrealist Louis Aragon. Before long, she sold pictures signed as “Photo Taro” to many magazines, e.g. Regards, Life, Illustrated London News, Volks-Illustrierte. She was the only photographer to record the bombarding of Valencia. Only her pictures documented the presence of Republican forces in the region of Brunete near Madrid at a time when Spanish nationalists maintained that they fully controlled the area. She died there on 26 July 1937 crushed under a tank. Her funeral in Madrid transformed into a huge manifestation with the participation of Pablo Neruda and Louis Aragon. Many of Taro’s photos were published posthumously all over the world, often without the author’s name. David Seymour, a.k.a. Chim (b. 1911, Poland; d. 1956, Egypt) Regarded as both a Polish and American photographer, apart from Cartier-Bresson the best educated founding member of the Magnum Agency. After Robert Capa’s death he assumed the ungrateful (and pro bono) position of the CFO. A person of fine sensitivity, he made a name for himself for his pictures accounting for the impact of war on the mental health of children. The pictures made up the album Children of Europe. Born as Dawid Szymin into a family of a Warsaw Jew, a publisher of Hebrew literature. During World War I, the family moved to Russia but later returned to Poland. Szymin emigrated only in 1929, when he took up studies in the prestigious school of graphic arts and publishing techniques in Leipzig (with a faculty of photographic techniques). In the period 1931-33 he moved to the Sorbonne in Paris, changing his major to Chemistry and Physics. He met Gerda Taro, Robert Capa and Cartier-Bresson. A friend of the family lent him a photo camera. His first reportage depicted people working the night (1932). His photographs started to appear regularly since 1934 in the popular magazine Paris-Soir and Regards. He earned his nickname Chim (read as: Shim) because of the difficulty of pronouncing his Polish surname. In 1936, as his two friends, he leaves for Spain to record the civil war. His reportage about the bombarded Barcelona was published on the cover of American Life. After the defeat of the Republicans, he returned to France and soon emigrates to the USA, first taking a ship to Mexico with Spanish refugees. In 1940 he enlisted into US Military and served there until 1945, helping prepare the topographic invasion plans, working as an interpreter and army photographer; later he received a medal for his contribution. In 1942 both of his parents died at Nazis’ hands; he received US citizenship and assumes the name David Seymour. After World War II he became a co-founder of the Magnum Agency (1947), worked for a longer time for UNESCO – also in Poland – taking pictures of children traumatized mentally and physically by the war (album Children of Europe, 1949). A great lover of children, he did not have a family of his own. Magnum was his family (he remembered about the birthdays of all the children of the Agency’s photographers). In Magnum he most often worked in Europe, especially in his beloved Italy (in 1950 he published an album The Vatican. Behind the Scenes in the Holy City). He took pictures of film stars and artists such as Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, and Pablo Picasso. He went to Israel during martial law. On Robert Capa’s death he took over some of his capacities as vice president for finances. On 10 November 1956, during the Suez Crisis, he was shot down together with the French photographer Jean Roy, who – driving their car – failed to stop at an Egyptian military checkpoint. |
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