ISRAEL
Falling Loyalist soldier, Cordoba front, Spain, 1936. This is perhaps Robert Capa's most famous photograph.
The Essence Of People
The late Robert Capa is famous for his photographs of the Spanish Civil War.
But Capa, who was born Andre Friedmann in Hungary, also took photos of Israel.
These, and others of his work, are on view at the Tel Aviv Museum.
HELENA FLUSFEDER
Special to The Jewish News
A
powerful photographic
exhibition by Hun-
garian-born Robert
Capa opened recently at the
Tel Aviv Museum.
Containing some 200 pho-
tographs, the exhibition
reveals that although he was
generally known as a war
photographer, Capa, in fact,
captured other aspects of
humanity in a unique and
moving photo-journalistic
style. .
While many of the photo-
graphs have been seen before,
this marks "the first time
that a Robert Capa exhibition
includes a large number of his
photographs taken in Israel
between 1948 and 1950," says
the exhibit's curator, Micha
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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1988
Bar-Am, who adds that no
one, not even Capa's brother,
Cornell, had realized the ex-
tent of the photographer's
involvement with Israel.
Many of Capa's unpub-
lished photographs had been
filed away in the form of
negatives and contact sheets,
and no one had looked at
them since 1950 when some
had been published in a book,
Report from Israel, a col-
laboration with American
author Irwin Shaw.
"The only reason we were
able to rediscover them was
because this bulk of work was
taken care of by Cornell and
Edie Capa, the photogra-
pher's brother and sister-in-
law, and they donated them
to the_ museum," says Bar-
Am, a personal friend of
Cornell Capa.
Thgether, Bar-Am and Cor-
nell sifted through Capa's
work and selected a combi-
nation of published and
unpublished photographs
covering five wars, including
Israel's War of Independence.
There are some 140 Capa pho-
tographs of Israel in the
exhibit.
Capa's Israeli photographs
reflect the struggle for the
state's existence; the subse-
quent arrival and settlement
of immigrants in camps; the
historic arrival of illegal
immigrants aboard the ship
Altalena; and images of the
country's leading political
figures, including the young
Menachem Begin as orator,
speaking to a crowd before an
election.
Others show the first presi-
dent of Israel, Chaim Weiz-
mann, relaxing on a deck
chair outside his home in
Rehovot; a makeshift menorah
stuck into the sand in the
Negev Desert; faces from a
funeral; a religious Jew
dressed in a dark suit trudg-
ing across a flat Safed
landscape.
The exhibition also in-
cludes the better known,
dramatic photographs from
Spain, pre and post-war
Europe, Mexico and Indo-
china, some of which "have
been turned into symbols
that go beyond the photos,"
says Bar-Am, referring es-
pecially to one of the most
extraordinary photograpphs
in the collection which hangs
just inside the entrance to the
museum. Taken in 1936, it
shows the split-second death
of an anonymous Loyalist
soldier during the Civil War
in Spain. Frozen by the
camera, the man's moment of
death has become a "collec-
tive, universal symbol,"
Bar-Am comments.
Capa also took portraits of
his friends, including artist
Pablo Picasso, pictured hold-
ing a sunshade over the young
Francoise Gilot; author Ernest
Hemingway sitting sprawled
next to his son; and a profile