Robert Capa and Gerda Taro

Posted on November 3, 2008
Filed Under Art, Events, Experiences, Photography

This Is War! Robert Capa at Work , Gerda Taro On the Subject of War at Barbican Art Gallery.
“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough”.
Robert Capa (1913-1954), the legendary Hungarian-born war photojournalist, and of the founders of Magnum, chose the Leica as a tool. He became famous for capturing the ultimate in decisive moments - the death of a Spanish Civil War soldier cut down by a bullet in 1936. When Civil War became World War, in 1939, Capa bought fame, heroism, and charisma to the war photographer. Working for Life Magazine he recorded that the first rule of photojournalism was ‘to get close’ and the second, ‘to get closer.’ It earned him a reputation as the world’s greatest war photographer and its first real celebrity.

Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, Cerro Muriano, September 5, 1936.

I was last week to Barbican Art Gallery to see Robert Capa’s Exhibition. I found there some of his famous photographs, and some prints made from the films founded at the beginning of this year. I really enjoyed by looking at some manuscripts he wrote, documentation from his pictures, and some of the letter to his family, and by looking Gerda Taro’s photographs.

Republican militiawoman training on the beach, outside Barcelona August 1936

The same exhibition is featuring more war photographers work, among them Gerda Taro (1910–1937), a German photographer who spent her brief but dramatic career photographing the Spanish Civil War alongside Robert Capa, her lover and collaborator. She was one of the first female photographers to work on the frontline and the first to be killed in action in 1937, aged just 26, whilst covering the battle for the city of Brunete.