Robert Capa

(Hungarian, 1913–1954)

Robert Capa was an American-Hungarian photographer who captured five wars over the course of his lifetime. Capa’s images of the Normandy Invasion on D-Day redefined photojournalism. “It's not always easy to stand aside and be unable to do anything except record the sufferings around one,” he once said. Born Endre Friedmann on October 22, 1913 in Budapest, Hungary, Capa left his home country at the age of 18, finding work as a photojournalist in post-World War I Berlin. During this time, he concealed his Jewish heritage with a pseudonym based on his childhood nickname “Cápa,” or “Shark.” Throughout his life, he covered many important historical events, including the rise of Soviet Communism, the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and a full survey of the politics and atrocities of World War II. Capa's photographs are recognized across the globe for their critical role in shaping public remembrance of these events. In 1947, he co-founded Magnum Photos in Paris with fellow photographers David Seymour, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and George Rodger. Capa died tragically on May 25, 1954 after stepping on a landmine while documenting the First Indochina War in Thai Binh, Vietnam. Today, his photographs are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Reina Sofia National Museum in Madrid, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, among others.