Gerda Taro courtesy
Fans in a Flashbulb
Toronto. Fans of the late war photographer Robert Capa remember this great man, but what about his companion, a woman war photographer called Gerda Taro?
Like Capa, Gerda Taro changed her name back in 1936. Sadly Taro died the following year, 1937. The web site “Fans in a Flashbulb” offered this Christopher George article on August 1, 2018 (98 years after her birth) as her bio, “Gerta Pohorylle, aka Gerda Taro, was born in Stuttgart, Germany, on August 1, 1910. After attending the Königin-Charlotte Realschule in Stuttgart, the Internat Villa Florissant in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Höhere Handelsschule (Business College) in Stuttgart, and the Gaudig Schul in Leipzig, she had to flee to Paris in 1933, where she was first employed as a secretary to the psychoanalyst René Spitz.
“She soon met André Friedmann and started photographing; in the spring of 1936, they reinvented themselves as Robert Capa and Gerda Taro. From August 1936 on, Taro became a pioneering photojournalist whose brief career consisted almost exclusively of dramatic photographs from the front lines of the Spanish Civil War. Her photographs were widely reproduced in the French and international press.
“Taro worked alongside Capa, and the two collaborated closely. While covering the crucial Battle of Brunete on July 25, 1937, Taro was struck by a tank and died the next day. She was the first female photographer to be killed while reporting on war.”
My thanks to member George Dunbar for suggesting this wonderful website! The site uses WordPress to create the various posts, many on famous photographers – take a browse.
