Robert Capa

[Endre Ernő Friedmann] (Budapest, 22 October 1913 – Thai Binh, 25 May 1954)

Based on the still valid words of Stefan Lorant, Capa is the world’s greatest war photographer. One of Capa’s famous remarks was: “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” Having been influenced by Kassák, Capa became interested in journalism a year before his high school graduation. He began taking photographs in 1930. In the same year, he was arrested after taking part in a left-wing demonstration. He then had to leave the country. His first stop abroad was Berlin, where he became a student at the German Political College. Short of money, he took on a job in the darkroom of the Dephot photo agency, where he received his first Leica from Lászlу Gutmann. He was also given an assignment: to take a photograph of Trotsky at the socialist congress in Copenhagen. In 1933 he moved to Paris, where he tried his luck with a change of name. In 1936 he travelled to Spain, having been commissioned by Regards to photograph the revolution. His photograph Death of a loyalist soldier brought him recognition and has since become a photographic classic. Thereafter Capa never really stopped; he travelled to wherever there was an armed conflict. During World War II he took photographs in England, North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. On D-Day he accompanied the first U.S. troops to land on Omaha Beach. After the war he visited Hungary, where he showed a unique sensitivity in photographing the country’s post-war reconstruction and the slow but inevitable communist takeover. In 1947, he joined forces with David Seymour, Henri Cartier Bresson, and George Rodger to found Magnum Photos. In 1954, he was sent by Life to photograph the conflict in Indochina; he stepped on a landmine near Thai Binh and was fatally wounded.