In Turin exhibition on Robert Capa and Gerda Taro: photography, love, war

After the solo shows dedicated to Dorothea Lange and André Kertész, CAMERA - Centro Italiano per la Fotografia in Turin presents the exhibition Robert Capa and Gerda Taro: photography, love, war, curated by da Walter Guadagnini and Monica Poggi. The exhibition, on view from Feb. 14 to June 2, 2024, recounts with about 120 shots one of the crucial moments in the history of 20th-century photography, the professional and emotional relationship between Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, which was tragically interrupted with the photographer’s death in Spain in 1937.

Fleeing Nazi Germany she, emigrating from Hungary he, Gerta Pohorylle and Endre - later Frenchified André - Friedmann (these are their real names) met in Paris in 1934, and the following year they fell in love, forging an artistic and sentimental partnership that led them to frequent the cafés of the Latin Quarter but also to engage in photography and political struggle. In a Paris in great ferment but invaded by intellectuals and artists from all over Europe, however, finding commissions is increasingly difficult. To try to entice publishers, it is Gerta who invents the character of Robert Capa, a rich and famous American photographer who has recently arrived on the continent, an alter ego with whom André will identify for the rest of his life. She also changes her name and takes on that of Gerda Taro.

The decisive year for both of them is 1936: in August they move to Spain to document the ongoing civil war between the Republicans and Fascists; the following month Capa will take the legendary shot of the Militiaman shot to death, while Gerda Taro shoots his most iconic image, a militiawoman in training, gun drawn and shoes in heels, in an unprecedented view of war made and represented by women. Together with these two icons, the photographers take many other shots, which testify to an intense participation in the event, both from the point of view of war reportage and from the point of view of the daily life of soldiers, female soldiers and the population dramatically victimized by the conflict.

Their photographs are published in the major newspapers of the time, from “Vu” to “Regards” to “Life,” giving the pair, who often sign with a single initials, without distinguishing the author or author of the shot, a solid reputation and many requests for work. During 1936 and 1937 the pair moved between Paris and Spain, documenting, for example, strikes in the French capital and the 1937 elections, which ended with the victory of the Popular Front anti-fascist grouping. But also the International Convention of Antifascist Writers in Valencia, where Taro photographs such figures as André Malraux, Ilya Ehrenburg, Tristan Tzara, and Anna Seghers. Just shortly after the Popular Front’s victory, however, during the Battle of Brunete, Spain, on July 24, 1937, Gerda Taro was unintentionally run over by a tank and died, thus tragically ending the life of the first war reporter.

The following year, Robert Capa would give birth to the epochal volume Death in the Making, dedicated to his companion, in which many of the images visible in the exhibition are found, of both photographers. The intense season of photography, war and love of these two extraordinary figures is narrated in CAMERA’s exhibition through the photographs of Gerda Taro and those of Robert Capa, as well as through the reproduction of some of the specimens of the famous "Mexican suitcase,“ containing 4,500 negatives taken in Spain by the two protagonists of the exhibition and their friend and companion David Seymour, known as ”Chim."

The suitcase, which was lost track of in 1939, when Capa entrusted it to a friend to prevent the materials from being requisitioned and destroyed by German troops, was only found again in 2007 in Mexico City, allowing a series of images whose author or creator was until then unclear to be correctly attributed.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog published by Dario Cimorelli Editore with texts by the curators.

INFORMATION CAMERA - Centro Italiano per la Fotografia Via delle Rosine 18, 10123 - Torino www.camera.to | camera@camera.to Facebook/ @cameratorino Instagram/ @cameratorino Opening hours (Last entry, 30 minutes before closing) Monday 11.00 - 19.00 Tuesday 11.00 - 19.00 Wednesday 11.00 - 19.00 Thursday 11.00 - 21.00 Friday 11.00 - 19.00 Saturday 11.00 - 19.00 Sunday 11.00 - 19.00

In Turin exhibition on Robert Capa and Gerda Taro: photography, love, war

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