This year marks the 100th birthday of Hungarian-born photojournalist Robert Capa, who captured almost every major war during the first half of the 20th century. The fearless Capa traveled through Europe and Asia producing black and white images depicting the realities and effects of war, both on and off the battleground. After World War II, the photographer began a transition to color photography that depicted more glamorous postwar lifestyles. The International Center of Photography has put these color photos on view for the first time in its traveling exhibition Capa in Color, which opens in New York in January. Here, Capa is shown at a meeting of the Magnum photographic cooperative in Paris, circa 1947. —by Justin Jones
Capa’s first published photograph, taken on November 27, 1932, in Denmark, was of Leon Trotsky lecturing Danish students on the history of the Russian Revolution.
This photo was taken in September 1936, during the peak of the Spanish Civil War. Although it allegedly depicts a Spanish soldier mid-execution, a debate has long raged about whether it was staged. Nevertheless, it has remained to be one of the most iconic war photos ever taken.
(c) Robert Capa (c) International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos
A major part of the Spanish Civil War, the Battle of Bilbao took place from March to September of 1937. In May of that year, Capa captured crowds seeking shelter as air-raid alarms sounded.
While in Barcelona in January 1939, Capa witnessed this young girl resting during the evacuation of the city. The Spanish Civil War ended April 1, 1939.
(c) Robert Capa (c) International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos
On June 6, 1944, American soldiers landed on Omaha Beach in Normady, France. Capa captured some of the most iconic images of D-Day, as the soliders emerged onto the sandy beaches that began the Allies’ path through Europe to the eventual defeat of Hitler in World War II.
During World War II, Capa traveled through Europe documenting both battle scenes and everyday life. Here, in a photo dated August 18, 1944, in Chartres, France, a Frenchwoman who gave birth to a German soldier’s baby is marched home after having her head shaved as punishment.
(c) Robert Capa (c) International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos
The fearless photographer was constantly in the thick of the action. This photo shows an American soldier who was killed by a German sniper in Leipzig, Germany, on April 18, 1945.
(c) Robert Capa (c) International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos
In 1947, Capa snapped a group of young visitors waiting to see Lenin’s Tomb on Red Square in Moscow. Considered a master of black and white photography, the artist shifted to color after World War II.
Not only did Capa travel with influential writers such as John Steinbeck, but he also mingled with the artists Pablo Picasso and Françoise Gilot, among others. Here they are pictured on a French beach in August 1948.
Snapped in Indochina on May 25, 1954, this is one of the last pictures taken by Robert Capa with his Nikon camera before he stepped on a landmine and died. It is one of the many photos featured in the International Center of Photography’s traveling exhibition Capa in Color, opening at ICP New York in January.
