The Musée de la Libération de Paris - musée du général Leclerc - musée Jean Moulin presents, with the exceptional collaboration of Magnum Photos, a contextualised re-reading of his work. More than sixty original press prints are shown alongside magazines, books, documents and personal objects. Together, these one hundred and sixty pieces trace the path of a young Hungarian immigrant who became an icon of modern photography.
The "Capa style", that direct and immersive way of photographing war, has deeply influenced the profession, which is always exposed to the dangers of the field. In 2024, according to Reporters Without Borders, fifty-four journalists still lost their lives in the course of their mission, most of them in conflict zones.
By presenting the work of Robert Capa, the exhibition offers a historical perspective on a reality that is still current: that of the risk one must take to report on war.
Robert Capa is THE war photographer of legendary images. He invented the model: necessarily American, carefree and seductive, a drinker and a gambler, ready to risk his life to take THE iconic photograph. That is the mythical side of the character and the existence he had chosen for himself.
This portrayal, however, masks another story: that of a Hungarian exile in Paris between the wars, who reinvented himself as Robert Capa, a remarkable war photographer. Capa refined the craft, concerned with producing images that could be distributed by the press, as the prints and magazines on display show. Beyond the romance, examining his career and his images allows us to approach his life, his commitments and, above all, to understand why, almost a century later, his photographs remain legendary.