Robert Capa, Death of Militiaman

With Remembrance Sunday just passed, thoughts of fallen soldiers remain fresh in our minds. Less so, however, the photographers who also risked (and lost) their lives to document these soldiers' lives and deaths. Two such leaders of the charge in the “golden age” of photojournalism were Robert Capa and Gerda Taro. Both achieved recognition documenting the Spanish Civil War, and Capa’s image Death of a Militiaman from this conflict remains the most iconic wartime image of the period.

The picture is of the death of a loyalist soldier, captured the very moment he is hit by a bullet and falls backwards to the ground, releasing his grip on his rifle. The shot was so perfectly timed and framed, that it was later alleged (falsely) to be posed.

Robert Capa, Young Girl

By the time WWII had broken out, Capa had moved from Paris to New York to escape Nazi persecution (being Jewish). He returned to France for the D-Day landing however, where he swam ashore during the second assault wave on Omaha Beach.

Allegedly, all but eleven of his 100 photos were properly processed, as an error in the lab led to the rest of the negatives being accidentally destroyed. The images that did come out show, in their blurriness, the chaos of the most monumental one-day invasion on record.

Robert Capa, American Soldiers landing, 1944

After the War, Capa went on to found the Magnum photo cooperative along with Henri Cartier-Bresson and others. Though he had vowed to no longer cover wars, he travelled to Vietnam in 1954 for the First Indochina War. Sadly, his luck finally ran out here, where he was killed after stepping on a landmine while chasing an advance regiment.

Robert Capa, Taro and Soldier, 1936

Gerda Taro worked with Capa so closely that she initially shared his pseudonym (his real name was André Fridmann) when selling her photos. Born in 1910 as Gerta Pohorylle, she was arrested in 1933 for attending an anti-Nazi protest. Escaping to Paris she met and fell in love with André, creating the Capa name in homage to the director Frank Capra.

Covering the Spanish Civil War together in 1936 they began to find commercial success. Gerta established her own alter ego, Gerda Taro, though they still sometimes signed photos Capa&Taro, leaving them indistinguishable.

Gerda Taro, Militiawomen, 1936

After refusing his marriage proposal however, she established some photographic independence. She strengthened her ties to anti-fascist groups and publicly associated with figureheads of the movement such as Orwell and Hemingway, becoming more sympathetic to the Spanish Republic.

Gerda Taro, Republican Soldiers, 1937

She did not survive to see a Nationalist victory and the subsequent atrocities of Franco’s rule. Like Capa, she died covering combat, as the Republican army was retreating in July 1937.

You can visit This is War! Robert Capa at Work until 25 Jan at Barbican Art Gallery.

The Gerda Taro exhibition runs concurrently at the Upper Galleries.

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