By Alfred EisenstaedtLIFE Photo Collection
Born Endre Ernő Friedmann in 1913, Robert Capa was a Hungarian-Jewish photographer who captured some of the most iconic moments of the 20th century. Forced to flee Hungary at the age of 18, Capa arrived in Berlin just as the Nazi Party was in ascendance.
After witnessing the rise of Adolf Hitler, Capa moved to Paris. It was here that he assumed his new identity and started down the road to becoming the world’s greatest war photographer.
Robert Capa is born
When he arrived in Paris, Endre Ernő Friedmann found it difficult to find work under his own name. Along with his friend and fellow photographer Gerda Taro, he decided to work under the name ‘Robert Capa’.
Capa was supposedly a famous American photographer. This seemed to impress local publishers and soon both Friedmann and Taro were having their photos printed under the pseudonym.
Women pleading with Rebels for Lives of Prisioners, Constantina, Seville (1936) by UnknownMuseo Reina Sofia
The Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War started in 1936 and drew idealistic young fighters from around the world to the Iberian Peninsula. Capa and Taro – who by this point was working under her own name – travelled to Spain to photograph the conflict.
While covering the Battle of Cerro Muriano, close to Córdoba, Capa took a photo that would become one of his most iconic. ‘The Falling Soldier’ appears to show the moment a young republican soldier was fatally shot in the head.
The Republican Army in the Mountains of Navacerrada (1936) by UnknownMuseo Reina Sofia
Capa spent a lot of the war with Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway later wrote about this time in his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Running to the nearest shelter (1939) by UnknownMuseo Reina Sofia
The Second World War
Capa photographed much of the Second World War, but it’s for his D-Day Landing photos that he’s best remembered.
Capa was the only photographer to go ashore with US troops as they landed on Omaha Beach. He took 106 photos before returning to the safety of the ship. However, due to an inexperienced assistant in the dark room at Life, all but 11 were destroyed while being developed.
Hemingway In Cuba (1952-08) by Alfred EisenstaedtLIFE Photo Collection
A Star Studded Life
When he wasn’t at work, Capa spent his time with some of the best-known names of the era. Close friends with Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Pablo Picasso and Irwin Shaw. He shared a darkroom with acclaimed photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson and was a lover of Ingrid Bergman.
Surrender of Red Soldiers, Somosierra, Madrid (1936) by UnknownMuseo Reina Sofia
Magnum Photos
In 1947, Capa, together with David "Chim" Seymour, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger William Vandivert, Rita Vandivert and Maria Eisner, founded Magnum Photos.
The agency was the first photographic cooperative owned and administered by its members. It remains the world’s most respected photographic agency to this day.
The Ebro Front (1938) by UnknownMuseo Reina Sofia
The First Indochina War
In 1954, Life asked Capa to travel to Southeast Asia where the French had been fighting the First Indochina War since 1946. It was during this trip that Capa stepped on a landmine and was killed. He was just 40 years old.
By Alfred EisenstaedtLIFE Photo Collection
As his D-Day photos show, Capa was always in the thick of things. He claimed that ‘If your photos aren’t good enough, you're not close enough’, a motto he lived by throughout his career.
Scenescope (1951-02-02) by Burt GlinnLIFE Photo Collection
