by Desconhecido
When I met Marc, we would take long walks in our beloved New York City, talking about writing and books and history. One evening we were having dinner at one of our favorite restaurants when Marc remarked, “You’re really smart in the way you talk about fiction.” I felt a sudden warmth in my chest. It was like a tiny flame turning on. A part of myself that felt hidden became visible. Marc’s easy sense of collaboration, his family’s history, was a revelation. He softened the fierce borders I had created around myself. I finally graduated from my tiny studio apartment to that large rambling house on the other side of the driveway, with its noise and chaos and expansiveness.
This was the essence of Capa and Taro’s relationship: they recognized in each other what they could be. When Gerta met André, he was a disheveled, charming, not-very-serious photographer. But Gerta saw in André Friedmann a tremendous talent. He, in turn, was not threatened when she wanted to take up photography; he encouraged her interest. They weren’t focused on what they were—penniless, unknown—but what they could be. They invented their future selves.
People often ask, Does working on a book together ruin your marriage? We are always puzzled by this. Working on a book together, or sharing a project we are separately working on, is our marriage. It’s all the coulds we are making happen. It’s no different from making sure dinner is on the table and our boys are happy. When Marc was writing Sir Walter Ralegh and the Quest for El Dorado, I sat with Marc and made him write and rewrite certain scenes while our infant son napped or played in the playpen. Vacations as a family quickly became working holidays. We sat across from each other, sharing pages, talking through what we were writing or what was next. Now that our boys are older, we include them in the process, too—asking them questions, or giving them pages, or having them join in on research and field trips.
The greatest gift collaboration gives you is a feeling that something nearly hidden can exist. The could—that tiny, flickering flame hidden in you—becomes visible. In sharing it with your collaborator, your copain, it is now on the outside. A gust grows, builds within you. Your idea takes shape. Now it grows in new ways. All because you have this friend, this fellow seeker who believes that what was once phantom can become solid and real.
This is what Capa and Taro gave each other. After Taro’s death, Capa never again had a romantic relationship that mingled love and work. From then on, he kept the two separate. Yet even as Capa became the “greatest war-photographer,” even as he turned into a roving ladies’ man who would never settle down, even as Taro’s reputation was overshadowed by his later fame and by politics, this early collaboration remains. It was a time when they were at their most vulnerable and, thus, most open to changing who they were. They invented each other. They understood the power of the could. And they changed the way all of us could see.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WE HAVE BEEN TRULY FORTUNATE in that so many people who are experts in their fields were generous with their time, their insights, and their assistance. Every decision in this book, however, was ours and is our responsibility; in honoring those who helped us, we in no sense imply that they made our choices.
This book exists only because Cynthia Young and the International Center for Photography helped us find nearly all of the images, located every letter and interview we needed, read and reread the text, and reviewed the photos and layout. Claartje van Dijk stood by us in the old archive building, seeking out ever more resources and answering countless e-mails thereafter. While ICP was our editorial guide and provided links where Magnum did not hold a particular image, Magnum Photos—through the good offices of Michael Shulman—became our true partner. They agreed to give us limitless access in return for a share of our earnings. Without ICP and Magnum, this book would simply not be possible.
Decades ago, in junior high, Lisa Berger and Marina used to help their Spanish teacher after class. Lisa went on to be fluent in both Spanish and Catalan and has made her own powerful documentaries related to the Spanish Civil War. When we traveled to Spain to follow in our photographers’ footsteps, it was she who provided entrée, setting up contacts, sharing her research, and later navigating the mysteries of Spanish rights, rules, and regulations on our behalf.
Alan Warren was a wonderfully informed guide in Barcelona, along the Ebro (where our sons found cartridges from the war still scattered on the ground), and in Les Masies—where Capa photographed the disbandment of the International Brigades. Ernesto Vinas was a similarly insightful guide to the battle of Brunete. Alan led us to Angela Jackson, who has pioneered the study of British women and the Spanish Civil War. The true scholars who have done pathbreaking research on our photographers include: Irme Schaber on Gerda Taro, Carole Naggar on Chim, and again Cynthia Young on Capa. All three were constantly available to answer questions or offer insights, as was Ben Schneiderman (Chim’s nephew) and Peter Stein (Fred Stein’s son). Thanks to both for letting us use their relatives’ photos. Amanda Vaill, who has done her own original research into the sources for her excellent book on three couples at the Hotel Florida during the conflict, was an enthusiastic, generous supporter from the first moment she heard of our project. Dr. Judith Keene read an early version of the manuscript and brought us both her deep knowledge of the conflict in Spain and again most welcome encouragement. Dr. Juan Salas, whom we met fortuitously, gave us more valuable leads on photography and the war.
Thanks to the government of Spain for making images available to us. The Trabajadores site at the University of Warwick is a marvel, and Carole Jones there helped us track down everything we wanted to see. Lynda Claassen at the Southworth Collection of the University of California San Diego and Chloe Morse-Harding at Brandeis University were also of great help in our image research. Kirin and Sunaya DasGupta Mueller translated an important letter from German. Amanda Viehmeyer and Brian Giles plowed through our piles of books to help organize our notes and bibliography. Norman Cowie and Kerry Dubyk were last-minute saviors.
Sally Doherty at Holt understood this vast project from the first, kept her gimlet eye on every word, and guided it through the house, and Rachel Murray took on innumerable tasks to facilitate the process; April Ward was truly brilliant as a designer—seeing the essence of the image and text flow. Jennifer Healey was a model of a managing editor in handling a cascade of details. Gail Hochman found us the right house, and Erin Cox—Marc’s agent and a publicist in her own right—is helping us bring the book to the world.
Sasha and Rafi have grown up watching this book take shape around them. We hope that at least some of the time they found that an inspiration rather than a distraction from our family life.
SOURCES
THE RESEARCH FOR THIS BOOK involved three distinct sets of materials: the history of the Spanish Civil War; the history of photography; and the biographies of Capa, Taro, and Chim. Here is a basic road map to the layers of scholarship and controversy we encountered in our research. We hope this guide is useful to anyone who wants to read further on these subjects.
From the moment the Spanish Civil War ended, historians began arguing over the story of what happened. You can get a sense of how intense these fights have been by looking at the first three appendices: whether it is a photo or a death in battle, every aspect of the war has inspired raging partisanship and controversy. For those who want to get oriented, there is a fine essay by George Esenwein in his source book The Spanish Civil War: A Modern Tragedy. Reading the essay is like perusing a travel guide before going on a trip to an intriguing but unfamiliar land. Because the Republic lost, several essential questions run through books on the war: (1) Could the Republic have won? How? (2) If it did, what kind of Spain would that have been? (3) Could Hitler have been stopped earlier and the devastations of World War II prevented? (4) Were those who went to Spain to fight for the Republic farseeing heroes or shortsighted dupes of the Soviet Union? While historians debate these issues through detailed research, the story of the war came to the general reading public through memoir
s and novels that, on the whole, treat the war as a heroic lost cause. There was often a rather male slant to these memoirs, focusing on combat and male camaraderie with sensual and sidelined women.
Here is a short version of Esenwein’s essay: Franco wanted only his side glorified, while those who fought for the Republic had the opposite aim. Following pathbreaking work by the British historian Hugh Thomas, scholars began to move past those split positions. Then a new front opened when Burnett Bolloten explored the divide between the two sides within the Left—those who wanted a social revolution right away and those in government who were more cautious and were strongly influenced by the Soviets. Was the Republic doomed by its own inner conflict? After the fall of the Soviet Union, a new wave of scholars shifted the focus to the machinations and calculations of the Soviets. Had Franco been defeated, this set of scholars suggested, Spain would have become something like the states in Eastern Europe that the Soviets dominated between 1945 and 1989. Perhaps, then, it is a good thing the Republic lost. Yet another set of primarily British scholars, such as Helen Graham and Paul Preston, rejected this idea and defended a more positive image of the Republican cause. That debate continues today.
Cultural historians have examined the artwork created during the war—the propaganda war both inside and outside of Spain. More recently, attention has shifted from the overarching issues to the roles of women in combat and as writers and nurses. And a senior scholar has looked once again at Franco to reevaluate him. In turn, books for the general public, such as Richard Rhodes’s Hell and Good Company, explore new angles such as the innovations in blood transfusions during the war and no longer assume that readers strongly identify with one side or another. As we reviewed the proofs of this book, Adam Hochschild’s Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 was published. This is the best current book on the war from an American pro-Left but fair-minded point of view. He builds the book around personal stories, and it is rich with evocative anecdotes, a few of which we were able to weave into captions. Mr. Hochschild was kind enough to read our book in galleys.
The first person to tell the story of Robert Capa, and to build the legend, was Capa himself. With his characteristic charm, he titled his sort-of memoir Slightly Out of Focus. From the title on, he was saying that this was not exactly true in all respects. The many memoirs and books on the Spanish Civil War published in the 1950s and 1960s often included mentions of Capa, and less frequently Taro. Unfortunately, as in Peter Wyden’s The Passionate War and more recently Alex Kershaw’s Blood and Champagne: The Life and Times of Robert Capa, the tone was often macho appreciation of Capa and skepticism or worse about Taro. In Capa’s lifetime, this eclipsing of Taro was, in part, a result of the McCarthyite mood of the early 1950s, when their association with the Left and Soviet communism was downplayed. But for the very same reason, in European countries with strong Communist Parties or actually under Soviet domination, Taro was revered as a martyr—a modern Joan of Arc—but for her politics more than her photography.
Richard Whelan devoted his career to thoroughly researching Capa’s life and, along the way, came to a greater appreciation and understanding of Taro. The actual interviews he did to create his work are available at the ICP and were the most rewarding resource for us.
The discovery of the Mexican Suitcase and the fall of Soviet communism began a shift. Scholars of photo-graphy were able to confirm the work on Capa and Taro that Whelan and Irme Schaber had begun. Schaber’s careful research really created the field of Taro scholarship but, unfortunately, was never translated into English. We had to make our way through French and German versions, a YouTube video of a presentation Schaber gave at the Frontline Club in London, as well as Schaber’s generous responses to our e-mails. Chim’s life and work were traced by Carole Naggar.
Most recently, as in Amanda Vaill’s lively and thoroughly researched Hotel Florida, writers have begun looking at Capa and Taro. Vaill was extremely generous and helpful in sharing insights and sources with us. The renewed appreciation of Taro as an artist, and as part of the Capa-Taro team, is similar to the shift among historians away from old ideological fights and toward an awareness of what the war meant for women and for the interaction between men and women.
One of the fascinating aspects of researching this book was examining the history of photography in magazines and advertisements. The innovations in layout in French far Left publications such as Vu, Regards, and Ce Soir were brought to America by people including Capa’s mentor, André Kertész, and Alexander Liberman, who became a supremely influential editorial director at Vogue and other Condé Nast publications (for example of Liberman’s Vu covers, see pages 11, 68, and 100). Art styles that were originally featured alongside anticapitalist political causes found a home in fashion magazines, advertisements, and even movies such as An American in Paris. Those interested in Liberman should read Them, a memoir of Alexander and his wife, Tatiana, by their daughter, the prominent author Francine du Plessix Gray.
IMAGE CREDITS
All photographs by Robert Capa on the following pages are copyright Robert Capa © International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos: here, here, here, here, here, here, here (photo of Capa), here, here (photo of Capa), here (Capa ID), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (photo of Capa), here, here, here, here, here, here (photo of Capa), here, here, here (photo of Capa), here, here, here (photo of Capa), here, here.
All photographs by Gerda Taro on the following pages are copyright Gerda Taro © International Center of Photography: here, here (photo of Taro), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (photo of Taro), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
All photographs by Chim (David Seymour) on the following pages are copyright © Estate of Chim (David Seymour)/Magnum Photos: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
All photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson on these pages are copyright © Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos: here, here.
The following photos are courtesy Collection Capa/Magnum Photos: here, Michel Descamps (Paris Match); here, Ruth Orkin.
The book and magazine covers and spreads on the following pages are courtesy of the International Center of Photography, Collection International Center of Photography: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
All documents (contact notebooks, letters, telegram, and press passes) on the following pages are courtesy Collection International Center of Photography/The Robert Capa and Cornell Capa Archive: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
All photographs by Fred Stein on the following pages are copyright © Estate of Fred Stein, fredstein.com: cover, here, here, here.
All photographs by unidentified photographers are copyright © International Center of Photography: here.
The materials on the following pages are from the University of Warwick Trabajadores Collection: here, Publications from the archive of Paul Tofahrn MSS 238/PUB/4/4 17; 43, Archives of the Trades Union Congress MSS 292/808.91/41; here, Archives of the Trades Union Congress MSS292/946/18b/84; here, Maitland-Sara-Hallinan collection MSS 15x/1/293/1/15; here, Publications from the archive of Henry Sara and Frank Maitland MSS 15/3/8/239; here, Publications from the archive of Henry Sara and Frank Maitland Journal of the Friends of the Spanish Republic 15/3/8/255/12; here, Publications from the archive of Paul Tofahrn MSS 238/PUP/4/4 here.
The image of a Leica courtesy of George Eastman Museum: here.
The materials on the following page
s are courtesy Brandeis University Spanish Civil War Poster Collection, Robert D. Farber University Archives & Special Collections Department: here, here.
The materials on the following pages are from archives in Spain: here, España, Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica, Armero, Carteles, 637; here, España, Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Archivo General de la Administración, Archivo Fotográfico de la Delegación de Propaganda de Madrid durante la Guerra Civil, signatura F-04048-54041 (Fotógrafo Prats); here, España, Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica, Armero, Carteles, 650; here, España, Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica, PS-Carteles, 302; here, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte de España; here, “El Comunismo” España, Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica, Armero, Carteles, 694; here “Accion Popular” España, Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica, Armero, Carteles, 520; here, “Obreros” Fundació Josep Renau – València.
Ramón Gaya Poster © 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VEGAP, Madrid: here.
Stamp courtesy Mandeville Special Collections UC San Diego Library: here.
Public domain: here (appears in Schaber, Whelan, and Lubben’s Gerda Taro, here); here (appears in Frizot and de Veigy’s Vu, here–here).
NOTES
PROLOGUE
1 At the top are hundreds of Nazi troops: Kershaw, Blood and Champagne, p. 124.
