“This is war”, the legacy of Gerda Taro
Gerda Taro by Robert Capa
In 1933, the photographer then known as Andre Friedman met Polish photographer Gerda Taro in Paris. They created the identity of American photographer “Robert Capa,” and sold Friedman’s work under that name. The newly-created Capa travelled to Madrid to cover the Spanish Civil war in 1935, and took this photograph of Taro during the battle of Brunete in 1936. Taro was killed in Madrid on July 25, 1937.
Interesting article in the New York Times on the exhibition at the International Center of Photography [New York City] of the work and life of Gerda Taro, photographer and partner of Endre Ernö Friedmann [Robert Capa], that has on her the credit to “create” the name that will become a historic figure in photojournalism, Robert Capa. On her own, she had a short career that consisted almost exclusively of dramatic photographs from the front lines of the Spanish Civil War, becoming a casualty of war during the conflict.
She died on 27 July 1937, the day after being severely wounded on the front, when a Republican tank collided with her car during the retreat from the Battle of Brunete. On August 1, on what would have been her 27th birthday, the French Communist party gave her a grand funeral in Paris and buried her at Le Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Born Gerta Pohorylle in Stuttgart in 1910, she left Germany in 1933 after being held in custody for associating with anti-Nazi activists. In Paris she met Capa, born Endre Friedmann in Hungary but calling himself André after moving to Paris (by way of Berlin). In spring 1936 the pair invented the persona of Robert Capa, whom they promoted as a “famous American photographer,” and she changed her name to Gerda Taro. Driven as much by political sympathy as by photographic ambition, they traveled south in August of that year to cover the Spanish Civil War for Vu magazine. - from the New York Times.
Gerda Taro. Photographer unknown.
