Photo Gallery: Exhibition about Robert Capa, the photojournalist has opened in Hungary

Robert Capa the Photojournalist, the world’s first permanent exhibition of Robert Capa’s work, opened on 13 June in the new 500 sqm exhibition space of the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, which is 10 years old this year. In 2008, the Hungarian State purchased the Master’s Set III (Mestergyűjtemény) series, which contains 937 enlargements created in the 1990s. This makes Budapest, alongside New York and Tokyo, the most important custodian of the Capa legacy. This unique exhibition presents around 140 photographs from the series – Including many iconic ones – covering the most important stages of the photographer’s life, in a thematic approach defined by the oeuvre. Robert Capa’s work is particularly important because his photographs and attitude have made a profound impact on the public, changing the norms of photojournalism forever, and contributing to the understanding of history and to the remembrance.

Robert Capa lived only 41 years. He was born as Endre Friedmann in Budapest on 22 October 1913, and died stepping on a landmine in the Indochina war on 25 May 1954. He was the unique visual chronicler of several major wars of the 20th century – the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, the First Arab-Israeli War and the First Indochina War. His name is among the first and best ones in the history of photography. As a war correspondent who had seen five battlefields, he made his mark in his tragically short life: he created a school with his photographs taken at the front and in the hinterlands and renewed the work of photojournalism. He photographed the war, the battles, the soldiers in the trenches or the everyday life of the hinterland from the position of a participant observer, with boundless compassion. He was there with the soldiers, he was there in the middle of the events and he was documenting the events in the immediate vicinity of death. With this closeness, this participation, he recreated the genre of war photography. We know his often quoted famous saying: “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” He had a significant impact on the photojournalism profession and war photography. His photographs and work have inspired and continue to inspire generations. The ethics and dedication that Capa embodied have been important pillars of the photojournalism profession ever since.

“He never considered it important only to record the event itself, but also the antecedents and consequences: he knew that a war never begins with the first shot and never ends with the last one. The exhibited photographs not only show the world of war but are also the guardians of Robert Capa’s peaceful moments” emphasizes Gabriella Csizek, curator of the exhibition.

The route through the exhibition space presents the most important stages of Robert Capa’s life, in a thematic approach, according to the themes defined by the oeuvre. His life journey is not only a walk in time and space, but also a kind of “inner journey”, which presents Capa’s artistic and personal fulfilment, who set out from Budapest in the early 1920s, travelled to and took pictures on almost every continent, and came to a tragically sudden end. The visual and information technology tools incorporated into the exhibition help to interpret the photographs, reveal the circumstances in which they were taken, bring them to life and reveal the immortal oeuvre.

The exhibition presents Robert Capa’s compositional virtuosity, his images built from meticulous, detailed observations and his also unique ability to capture rapidly developing actions. With pictures taken before or just after the world-famous photographs, he lets the events be seen in their sequence as well. One of the exhibited photographs of the Spanish Civil War features the same Federico Borell Garcia who can be seen in the photograph, The Falling Soldier.

The basis of the exhibition, the so-called Master’s Set III (Mestergyűjtemény), was selected by Cornell Capa (Robert Capa’s brother) and photographic historian Richard Whelan (Robert Capa’s monographer) from among the nearly 70,000 negatives left behind by Capa. According to their decision, only these three series of enlargements could be made of these negatives in this size. The images can be recognized by the dry stamp imitating Capa’s signature, which can be seen in the enlargements below, on the right. The series contains the most representative photographs of Capa’s oeuvre from 1932 to 1954, covering his entire career, from the first to the last. The Hungarian collection also includes the so called Vintage Collection made of 48 original photographs.

The agreement on purchase of the Robert Capa collection stipulated that the collection would eventually be housed in its “permanent home”, a photographic center to be created also for the collection’s research and exhibition. As the administrator of the photographs, one of the main tasks of the Capa Center, established to preserve and enrich the Hungarian photographic heritage, is to promote the acquired Robert Capa Collection through exhibitions, events, and publications. This year, 22 October marks the 110th anniversary of Robert Capa’s birth. In connection with the festive year, the world’s first permanent exhibition of Robert Capa’s lifework opened in the renovated spaces.

About the Institute

The Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center (Capa Center), established in 2013, has the main task of presenting the artists and trends of Hungarian and international photography and organizing national and international exhibitions, as well as a variety of photographic events (round tables, guided tours, portfolio consultations, workshops). To complement the exhibitions, we regularly organize events for the photography profession – both in person and online – which are extremely popular with both the public and the photographer profession. The Capa Center also has a significant international presence, in recent years it has become a member of several photographic platforms supported by Creative Europe.