"If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough." -- Robert Capa
In December 1938 a British publication introduced 'The Greatest War Photographer in the World: Robert Capa' with a spread of 26 photographs taken during the Spanish Civil War. The legend only grew from there. Born Endre Erno Friedmann to Jewish parents in Budapest in 1913, he studied political science at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik in Berlin until driven out of the country by the threat of a Nazi regime. Settling in Paris in 1933, he abandoned his ambitions of being a writer and took up photography full-time. He was represented by Alliance Photo and met the journalist and photographer Gerda Taro (two of whose photographs appear at the end of this gallery). Together, they invented the 'famous' American photographer Robert Capa and began to sell his prints under that name. In Paris he also met Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway, both of whom he would photograph many times and formed friendships with fellow photographers David 'Chim' Seymour and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
From 1936 onwards, Capa's coverage of the Spanish Civil War appeared regularly. His picture of a Loyalist soldier who had just been fatally wounded which opens our gallery earned him his international reputation and became a powerful symbol of war. After his companion, Gerda Taro, was killed in Spain, Capa traveled to China in 1938 and emigrated to New York a year later. As a correspondent in Europe, he photographed the Second World War, covering the Italian campaign, the landing of American troops on Omaha beach on D-Day, the liberation of Paris and the Battle of the Bulge. His action photographs, such as those taken during the 1944 Normandy invasion, portray the violence of war with unique impact.
In 1947, Capa co-founded Magnum Photos with, among others, the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. The organization was the first cooperative agency for worldwide freelance photographers. Capa is known for redefining wartime photojournalism. His work came literally from the trenches as opposed to the more arms-length perspective that was the precedent previously.
On the 25th of May 1954 he was photographing for Life in Thai-Binh, Indochina, when he stepped on a landmine and was killed. The French army awarded him the Croix de Guerre with Palm post-humously. The Robert Capa Gold Medal Award was established in 1955 to reward exceptional professional merit.
This gallery in the MWW Great Photographers series devoted to Capa presents 351 of his photographs. The focus is on his war photography -- Spain, China, the Italian campaign and Normandy invasion -- though there are also selections from his portfolios on the Popular Front, theTour de France, Israel and his buddy Hemingway. The entries are arranged in chronological order. Capa's own captions and/or other useful background information are included in the accompanying commentaries for each picture. (Click "See More" to the right of the full-screen image to access these.)
Other entries in the "MWW Great Photographers" series include:
* #1 - Alfred Stieglitz
* #2 - Edward Steichen
* #3 - Dorothea Lange
* #4 - Brassai
* #5 - Paul Strand
* #6 - Ansel Adam Silvester Pirk
* #7 - Imogen Cunningham
* #8 - Man Ray
* #9 - Edward Weston & Tina Modotti
* #10- Henri Cartier-Bresson
* #11- Yousef Karsh
* #13- Walker Evans & the FSA Photographers
* #14- Richard Avedon
