Photographer Focus #6: Gerda Taro

I first came across Gerda Taro’s work years ago as I was investigating claims that Capa didn’t actually land on Omaha Beach with the first waves (come back next week for a whole post on that subject) as a side story to that old post, and I’ve been thinking about her lately as I was writing this series. She was one of the most important war photographers of the 1930s, and then she was forgotten. This is the story of how it happened, and how she was finally found again. Gerda Taro, anonymous Robert Capa wouldn’t exist without Gerda Taro. She invented him: the name “Robert Capa” was her idea. A fictional American photographer, rich and successful, who could command higher prices than two hungry Jewish refugees in Paris. The early “Capa” work was partly hers. She was the manager, the strategist, the one who understood that talent needs packaging. Without Gerda Taro, there’s no Robert Capa. In the famous photo of Gerda Taro taken in July 1937, she’s holding a Leica. It’s probably a Model…