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CAPA Cornell

Born Kornel Friedmann.

 

Date of birth: April 14th 1918,  Budapest, Hungary.

Date of death : May 23rd 2008, New York City.

 

Portrait : 

,

 

Practise: photographer.

Founder of the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York City.

His wife, Edith Schwartz Capa has died in 2001.

Story

Brother of the famous photographer Robert Capa.

Robert Capa, left Hungary in 1931 for political reasons, and settled in Paris where he changed his name from Adrien Friedmann in Robert Capa.

When his brother joined him in 1936, this one was called the "little Capa".

He emigrated to the USA in 1937, settled in New York City and worked in the darkroom of a photo agency before working as a printer for Life magazine in 1938.  He served in the reporter information unit of the Air Force
during the Second World War and became American citizen in 1944. He legally changed his name this year.

He was photographer for Life Magazine from 1946 to 1967 and belonged to the Magnum agency since 1955.
He contributed to Life magazine until 1967, when he went to the Middle-East for covering his only major conflict, the Six-Day War.
Then he get away from his brother's interest for the battlefields (memorable photos taken during the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War) and focused to "open the world doors that people would have never seen either".

One of his stylistic line was to show some revealing details by shrinking his camera angle.
By taking pictures of the tap dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson funerals in 1949, Capa didn't focus on the crying people faces, standing up in the queue in the street, but on their shoes :

.

By reporting the Presidency campaign of John Kennedy in 1960, he showed Kennedy's hands touching the crowd :

,.

In the 50's, he took pictures of life in Soviet Union and of mentally ill children world, revealing sensibly a topic which had been ignored until then.
He created one of his most memorable picture by following Adlai Stevenson during the Presidential campaign in 1952. while Stevenson made a speech, Capa took him in picture from the candidate's back, with the crowd spreading before him :

.

From 1956 to 1960, he was the president of the Magnum photo agency he had co-founded with his brother.

He was one of this agency's photographers who took pictures of the shooting of "The Misfits" (1960). 

Marilyn et Clark Gable


,,,,

                         

Clark Gable

                        

Other

 

Other pictures : 

Robert Kennedy : 

                   

Laurence Olivier : 

 
Time passing by, Capa developed a sense of mission regarding the history preservation and his work conscience.

To be sure that his example and also his brother one wouldn't be forgotten, he thought of the idea of the International Center of Photography in New York City, which opened in 1974.

One of his first benefactors was the former First Lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis () who had became friend with Capa while he had took pictures of the first days of the Kennedy Presidency at the White House.
During 20 years as executive director, he made this center one of the first photography museums. He devoted himself to protect his elder brother heritage and regularly presented his photographies exhibitions.

"I've always thought about me not as a reporter but as a commentator" wrote Capa in the introduction of his book "Cornell Capa Photogtraphs" in 1992. "My intention was to be a credible witness, who cared about the world in which he lived".

Website

www.peterfetterman.com

www.magnumarchive.com 

International Center of Photography

 

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