Robert Capa (/ˈkɑːpə/; born Endre Ernő Friedmann;[1] October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954) was a Hungarian-American war photographer and photojournalist.

[3] During his career he risked his life numerous times, most dramatically as the only civilian photographer landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day.

In 1947, for his work recording World War II in pictures, U.S. general Dwight D. Eisenhower awarded Capa the Medal of Freedom.

[2] His mother, Julianna Henrietta Berkovits was a native of Nagykapos (now Veľké Kapušany, Slovakia) and Dezső Friedmann came from the Transylvanian village of Csucsa (now Ciucea, Romania).

[4]: 154  It was during that period that the Nazi Party came into power, which made Capa, a Jew, decide to leave Germany and move to Paris.

[4]: 154 Capa's first published photograph was of Leon Trotsky making a speech in Copenhagen on "The Meaning of the Russian Revolution" in 1932.

[a] Picture Post, a pioneering photojournalism magazine published in the United Kingdom, had once described then twenty-five year old Capa as "the greatest war photographer in the world.

"[4]: 155 The next year, in 1937, Taro died when the motor vehicle on which she was traveling (apparently standing on the footboard) collided with an out-of-control tank.

In December 2007, three boxes filled with rolls of film, containing 4,500 35mm negatives of the Spanish Civil War by Capa, Taro, and Chim (David Seymour), which had been considered lost since 1939, were discovered in Mexico.

[22] At the start of World War II, Capa was in New York City, having moved there from Paris to look for work, and to escape Nazi persecution.

[27][7][28] The US personnel attacking Omaha Beach faced some of the heaviest resistance from German troops inside the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall.

This incident may have been caused by Capa's cameras becoming waterlogged at Normandy,[7] although the more frequent allegation is that a young assistant accidentally destroyed the pictures while they were being developed at the photo lab in London.

[29] In 2016, John G. Morris, who was picture editor at the London bureau of Life in 1944, agreed that it was more likely that Capa captured 11 images in total on D-Day.

[29] For example, men described by Life as infantrymen taking cover behind a hedgehog obstacle during the assault landing were in fact members of Gap Assault Team 10 – a combined US Navy/US Army demolition unit tasked with blowing up obstacles and clearing the way for landing craft after the beach had been secured.

[36][41] In 1947, Capa founded the cooperative venture Magnum Photos in Paris with Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Vandivert, David Seymour, and George Rodger.

[42] In 1953 he joined screenwriter Truman Capote and director John Huston in Italy where Capa was assigned to photograph the making of the film, Beat the Devil.

He accompanied a French regiment located in Thái Bình Province with two Time-Life journalists, John Mecklin and Jim Lucas.

On May 25, 1954, the regiment was passing through a dangerous area under fire when Capa decided to leave his jeep and go up the road to photograph the advance.

Cornell moved to Paris in 1936 to join his older brother Capa, where he found an interest in photography instead of staying in the field of medicine.

[51] At the age of 18, Capa moved to Vienna, later relocated to Prague, and finally settled in Berlin: all cities that were centers of artistic and cultural ferment in this period.

Some months later, Capa became the lover of the actress Ingrid Bergman, who was touring in Europe to entertain American soldiers.[53]p.

[55] His younger brother, Cornell Capa, also a photographer, worked to preserve and promote Robert's legacy as well as develop his own identity and style.

Indeed, Capa and his brother believed strongly in the importance of photography and its preservation, much like film would later be perceived and duly treated in a similar way.

The exhibition appeared at the Barbican Art Gallery, the International Center of Photography of Milan, and the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in the fall of 2009, before moving to the Nederlands Fotomuseum from October 10, 2009, until January 10, 2010.

[60] As a young boy, Capa was drawn to the Munkakör (Employment Circle), a group of socialist and avant-garde artists, photographers, and intellectuals centered around Budapest.

In 1931, just before his first photo was published, Capa was arrested by the Hungarian secret police, beaten, and jailed for his radical political activity.

[5] The British magazine Picture Post ran his photos from Spain in the 1930s accompanied by a portrait of Capa, in profile, with the simple description: "He is a passionate democrat, and he lives to take photographs.