Born: 1 August 1910, Germany
Died: 26 July 1937
Country most active: Spain
Also known as: Robert Capa, Gerta Pohorylle
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
Before Gerda Taro became the first woman photojournalist to die while covering a war on the front lines, she worked with her lover Endre Friedmann. Together they collaborated on work attributed to “Robert Capa,” an American persona intended to protect European Jewish artists from increasing political tensions on the continent in the 1930s, as well as reaching the lucrative U.S. markets. Photos ostensibly taken by Americans sold for three times what they could get under their own names. Soon, Friedmann claimed the Capa pseudonym for his exclusive use, and as such many of the early “Capa” photos are Taro’s work, later credited to Friedmann. Even her own artist bios, with organisations such as the International Center of Photography, overlook this fact.