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Cornell Capa, Life Photographer, Dies at 90
Posted May 24,2008

Capa_icp_2 Cornell Capa, Founding Director of the International Center of Photography and Life magazine staff photographer died in New York on Friday, May 23, 2008. “The world has lost a great photographer and a great humanitarian; the world of photography has lost its greatest friend and champion,” said Willis E. Hartshorn, ICP Ehrenkranz Director.

One of the passions of Cornell Capa’s life was a dedication to the example set by his brother, famed war photographer Robert Capa. Cornell Capa’s photographs and those of other photographers he championed, often reveal the richness of an ordinary person’s relationship with the world, encompassing everything from cataclysmic events to the subtle epiphanies of daily life. “It took me some time to realize that the camera is a mere tool, capable of many uses,” Capa wrote in 1963, “and at last I understood that, for me, its role, its power, and its duty are to comment, describe, provoke discussion, awaken conscience, evoke sympathy, spotlight human misery and joy which otherwise would pass unseen, un-understood and unnoticed. I have been interested in photographing the everyday life of my fellow humans and the commonplace spectacle of the world around me, and in trying to distill out of these their beauty and whatever is of permanent interest.”


"One thing that Life and I agreed right from the start was that one war photographer was enough for my family; I was to be a photographer of peace."   Cornell Capa


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From the ICP: Capa was born Kornel Friedmann on April 10, 1918 in Budapest, Hungary. Graduating from the Imre Madach Gymnasium in Budapest in 1936, he intended to study medicine, and joined his brother André (Robert Capa) in Paris. Shortly thereafter, he began printing his brother’s photographs, as well as those by Chim (David Seymour), and Henri Cartier-Bresson. After moving to New York City in 1937, he got a job in the darkroom of the Pix photo agency, which represented Robert Capa, and the following year he began working in Life magazine’s darkroom, where he met many leading photojournalists and was inspired by their work. In 1939 he published his first photo-story on the New York World’s Fair, in the British magazine Picture Post. It was at this time that he also made his well-known stop-action flash photos of lindy hoppers in Harlem.

Nyc19538_455 In 1944 he became an American citizen and officially changed his name to Cornell Capa, in the course of a stint in the U.S. Air Force Photo-Intelligence Unit and USAF public relations division (1941-46). After becoming a Life staff photographer in 1946, he worked first on assignments throughout the United States, and subsequently in England—the latter of which Capa thought of as one of the most wonderful periods of his life, as it allowed him the opportunity to begin working consistently on serious and satisfying photo-essays.

After Robert Capa was killed in Indochina on May 25, 1954, Cornell Capa resigned from the Life staff and joined the elite Magnum Photo Agency, the cooperative of which his brother was a founder, helping to manage it as its President. While there, his work ranged from continuing documentation of politics in South America and in the United States, to a six-week period in the Soviet Union where he photographed stories on Russian Orthodoxy, Boris Pasternak, and the Bolshoi Ballet School. While Capa has called his stay in the Soviet Union the most miserable time in his life because of his constant frustration in dealing with the official bureaucracy and church functionaries, it was nevertheless during this trip that he shot some of his greatest and most memorable photographs.

To describe his brother and his kindred spirits, Capa coined the term “concerned photographer,” defining their focus as including any image in which genuine human feeling predominates over commercial cynicism or disinterested formalism. In 1966 he created the International Fund for Concerned Photography to keep alive the work of important photojournalists, spreading his message through exhibitions he guest curated, as well as workshops, books and audiovisual projects. He frequently assisted young photographers, and started a collection of important works of photojournalism, among them those of contemporaries who—like his brother—had died on assignment.

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Seven years later, worried about the plight of photojournalism as television became paramount, and encouraged by friends and family to put his collection and activities all under one permanent roof, Capa, along with a group of dedicated trustees, proceeded to find and renovate a beautiful Federal style landmark building on Fifth Avenue and 94th Street, and raised funds for the museum and school that would become known as the International Center of Photography (ICP). His venture attracted a professional staff and many young photographers for whom he became role model, mentor, and missionary for the genre of “concerned” or humanistic photography.

ICP opened in November 1974, and as Capa liked to say, “was born fully grown.” He had brought his many projects with him and was ready with a full schedule of changing exhibitions and education programs, a fledgling collection and study center, and traveling exhibitions available to museums throughout the U.S. and abroad. It was to be a home not only for concerned photography but also for photography of all sorts, from all times, and from all nations. And it was to be a place to show not only neglected work but also to preserve the archives and negatives of photojournalists, two cornerstones that continue to underpin the institution today.

Link to the New York Times obit.

Ken Geiger 

Posted by Ken Geiger | Comments (4)

Comments

Jennifer Smith
May 24, 2008 8AM #

The world loses an admired perspective with the death of every artist. Cornell Capa was a great photographer, and depicted emotions through his work beautifully. Remember him whenever you hear his name or see on of his emotion-evoking photographs. God bless Capa, he is in our thoughts.

husac
May 24, 2008 8AM #

Such a great article and a great photographer...god bless Capa!

amanda
May 24, 2008 8AM #

I'm surprise, because I'm spanish and only knew his brother, Robert Capa in espetial for his work about spanish war and didn't know he had a brother as good as him. God bless both! because them made a important social mirror from 20 century.

Hemantha Arunasiri
May 24, 2008 8AM #

I have observed this article about Cornel Capa. I knew a lot of details about him.Thank you very much.

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