Two Photographers:
Robert Capa Centennial / Gerda Taro Retrospective

A century has passed since the birth of Robert Capa (real name André Friedmann, 1913-1954), one of the most famous photographers in the world.  It is a little known fact that the name Robert Capa was a fictitious identity created by Friedmann and the German female photographer, Gerda Taro (real name Gerta Pohorylle, 1910-1937).  The two met in Paris in 1934 and soon became very close.  In the spring of 1936, they began promoting their services as photojournalists under the name of Robert Capa.  After their work began to sell, Friedmann took the Capa name, and Taro became an independent photographer.  In the next year, 1937, Taro lost her life while covering the Spanish Civil War, and Taro’s life and death had a profound influence on Capa’s subsequent activities. 

This exhibition is composed of two solo shows presenting the photographic work of Robert Capa and Gerda Taro.  It is the first time that the 193 Capa photographs in the Yokohama Museum of Art collection have been shown at one time, and the exhibition of 83 works by Gerda Taro, organized by the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York and taken from their collection, is the first comprehensive introduction of her work in Japan.  A total of about 300 photographs and documentary materials, including magazines in which their work was published, trace the lives and activities of these two important photographers, demonstrating the deep ties between them as well as their strong individual differences. 

[PartⅠ] Gerda Taro Retrospective

Gerta Pohorylle (later Gerda Taro) was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1910.  In 1934, the year after she arrived in Paris, she met André Friedmann (later Robert Capa) and aspired to work with him as a photojournalist.  They became lovers and professional partners.  When they began covering the Spanish Civil War, Friedmann took the name Capa and Pohorylle the name Taro (reportedly from first name of the Japanese artist OKAMOTO Taro), and they eventually became independent photographers under those names.  Taro met an unfortunately early death on the battlefield in Spain at age 27.

Capa and Taro’s photographic work was a joint enterprise, and it has been considered difficult to tell their work apart.  Recent studies, however, have clearly distinguished the photographs taken by Taro.  This exhibition will be first opportunity in Japan to get an overall view of her work.  It presents 83 prints that have been firmly identified as being by Taro as well as documentary materials, all provided by the International Center of Photography.  This exhibition provides a good introduction to Taro’s activity during her short life and her ability and achievement as a photographer.

*Gerda Taro Retrospective was first organized by ICP, 2007.

This exhibition is made possible with leadership gifts from the Alex Hillman Family Foundation, George and Bicky Kellner, The John Annamaria Phillips Foundation, and Cornell Capa with additional support from generous foundation and individual donors.

[PartⅡ] Robert Capa Centennial

Robert Capa (real name André Friedmann) was born in 1913 in Budapest, Hungary.  From 1930’s until his death in 1954, he traveled the world as a photojournalist, capturing the events of wars and people’s lives in many locations. 

In the five wars he covered during a career of more than 20 years, he risked his life to take a large number of remarkable photographs.  He also recorded the lives of ordinary people living in this troubled world, creating photographs that are filled with wit, passion, and deep empathy.  Both the horrors of war and human warmth are given effective expression in Capa’s documentary photographs, which have a time-transcending appeal that is as strong today as ever.  

The Yokohama Museum of Art has acquired a collection of 193 Capa photographs, many of them donated by the photographer’s brother, Cornell Capa.  It features his debut work, an image of Trotsky giving a speech in Copenhagen in 1932, and memorable war photographs such as the photo which well known as The Falling Soldier of 1936 from the Spanish Civil War and documentation of the 1944 D-Day landings in the World War Ⅱ.  It also includes genre scenes taken on a trip to Japan during his later years and images captured in Indochina 1954 just before he was killed by an exploding landmine.  The photographs are shown together with magazines and other media that spread his images throughout the world, providing an overview of Robert Capa’s life, work, and achievement as a photo journalist.