Description

On August 19, 1944, French Resistance forces and Allied troops began their liberation of Paris, driving out the last significant Nazi opposition who had been occupying the city since June 22, 1940. Robert Capa was there and documented the historic scenes as the city transformed from a place of oppression to one of freedom. In his memoir, Slightly Out of Focus, he describes that monumental day: “The road to Paris was open, and every Parisian was out in the street to touch the first tank, to kiss the first man, to sing and cry. Never were there so many who were so happy so early in the morning,”

War is like an aging actress: more and more dangerous and less and less photogenic.

Robert Capa
© Robert Capa | Magnum Photos

Born Andre Friedmann to Jewish parents in Budapest in 1913, Robert Capa studied political science at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik in Berlin. Driven out of the country by the threat of a Nazi regime, he settled in Paris in 1933. After his companion, Gerda Taro, was killed during the Spanish Civil War, Capa travelled to China in 1938 and emigrated to New York a year later.

Often referred to as the ‘greatest war photographer’, Capa documentation of the Second World War—including the landing of American troops on Omaha Beach on D-Day, the liberation of Paris and the Battle of the Bulge—have become genre-defining. In 1947, Capa founded Magnum Photos with Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour, George Rodger and William Vandivert.

On 25 May 1954, he was photographing for Life in Thai-Binh, Indochina, when he stepped on a landmine and was killed.

© Robert Capa | Magnum Photos

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