With a cigarette in his mouth and the Leica around his neck, this is how Robert Capa (Hungary, 1913-Vietnam, 1954) always walked, whether he was about to parachute into Germany with the American forces or dancing in a Dior fashion show.
The life of the most famous photojournalist in history is pure literature, like his autobiography slightly out of focus (1947), mixture of reality and fiction. He was born Endre Ernő Friedmann and died as Capa, a pseudonym he created with his partner Gerda Taro, to sell his photographs as if he were an American photographer. He spoke six languages but dreamed in images.
Known for his tireless work portraying the horror of warin retrospect Robert Capa. ICONSwhich has just inaugurated the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, also discovers his most unknown facet, that of the fun-loving man who became a regular in Hollywood and Parisian fashion shows, turned into a chronicler of the lifestyle of the time.
More than 250 pieces, coming from the Golda Darty Collection and the Magnum Photos archives, which invite you to understand the person behind the myth and unravel how his photographs traveled from the front to the newspapers, traveling thousands of kilometers, at a key moment for the birth of modern photojournalism.
Capa, one of the founders along with Cartier-Bresson of the Magnum Photos agency, survived the Spanish civil war, the Sino-Japanese war, the Second World War, the first Arab-Israeli war and the Indochina war, where he died in 1954, after stepping on an anti-personnel mine at only 40 years old.
The sample, which can be seen until January 25is a reflection of the cruelty of those conflicts in which Capa risked his life and the importance of journalism, said the director of the CBA, Valerio Rocco, during the presentation of the exhibition.
“It is very important today to remember the brutality of war at a time when we are witnessing almost 60 armed conflicts around the world. In particular, we feel very close to the drama of the war in Ukraine or the unacceptable massacre in Gaza,” explained Rocco, describing it as “regrettable” that the Israeli government does not allow international journalists to enter Gaza.
The photograph taken by Robert Capa in Vallecas (Madrid) in the winter of 1936.
Original photographs, many with Capa’s handwritten annotations on the front, such as that of three girls playing in front of a riddled house in Vallecas, the chaos on Omaha Beach during the Normandy Landings or the portraits of fallen American soldiers in Leipzig, occupy a central place in the exhibition. The intense red of the room and the black and white of its images enhance both the rawness and beauty of the tragedy.
Commissioner Michel Lefebvre highlighted the mystery surrounding the famous Death of a militiaman, image as iconic as it is controversialwhom he considers “the Mona Lisa of journalism.” “We do not know the day, nor the name of the militiaman, nor if he falls or dies.”
And the negative of the image, taken in September 1936 and published for the first time in the French magazine Vu and, later, in Lifebecoming internationally famous.
The photograph ‘Death of a militiaman’ in the exhibition of the Círculo de Bellas Artes. Photo: Carlos Luján/ Europa Press.
There are those who have conjectured that the photograph was taken by Taro—although Lefebvre believes it was Capa—and also that the image was captured naturally.
As time went by, historians like Fernando Penco Valenzuela They have come to the conclusion that the image was staged by the soldiers on a hill in the town of Espejo, in Córdoba, where there were no clashes. Something that, if really true, Lefebvre pointed out, “would detract from the image.”
Once the Civil War was over and thanks to his friendship with Ingrid Bergman, Capa left the trenches to accompany Hitchcock and John Huston on their filming in Los Angeles. Finally obtaining American nationality, the photographer entered a world very different from the one he was used to: fashion, luxury and color.
Some of his first color photographs were taken as a columnist—he also signed some texts—for the American magazine Holiday, with which he traveled to the hedonistic summers of Biarritz and Deauville and the sophisticated winters of the Austrian Alps. “The most heartfelt desire of the war correspondent is to remain unemployed”he wrote and preached.
In 1948, returning to Paris, where they established the Magnum headquarters, he took refuge in his circle of ex-state friends (Hemingway, Steinbeck and Irwin Shaw) while he continued selling photographic reports to North American magazines.
However, in the summer of 1954, after covering the situation of the new settlements in Israel and after accepting a last assignment from the magazine Life In the middle of the Indochina war, Capa approached the front again with his old concern about being “close enough.”
On May 25, while accompanying a French unit near Thai Binh, Vietnam, he decided to advance on foot to photograph the advance. A few minutes later, he stepped on a mine and died on the way to the hospital, still clinging to his camera. Thus ended the life of the photographer who could not avoid recounting the 20th century from the very edge of the abyss.