Background

Cornell Capa (the actual name is Kornell Friedmann) was born on April 10, 1918 in Budapest, Hungary in a Jewish family.

Education

Cornell Capa received his baccalaureate in 1936 from Madach Imre Gymnasium in Budapest.

Career

Cornell Capa moved, aged 18, to Paris to work with his elder brother Robert Capa, a photo-journalist. In 1937, Cornell Capa moved to New York City to work in the Life magazine darkroom. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, Capa became a Life staff photographer in 1946. The many covers that Capa shot for the magazine included portraits of television personality Jack Paar, painter Grandma Moses, and Clark Gable.

In 1953 Cornell Capa visited Venezuela to make a photo-report of Caracas, on this trip he had the opportunity to photograph the artist Armando Reverón.

In May 1954, his brother Robert Capa was killed by a landmine, while covering the final years of the First Indochina War. Cornell Capa joined Magnum Photos, the photo agency co-founded by Robert, the same year. For Magnum, Cornell Capa covered the Soviet Union, Israeli Six-Day War, and American politicians.

Beginning in 1967, Cornell Capa mounted a series of exhibits and books entitled The Concerned Photographer. The exhibits led to his establishment in 1974 of the International Center of Photography in New York City. Capa served for many years as the director of the Center. He has published several collections of his photographs including JFK for President, a series of photographs of the 1960 presidential campaign that he took for Life magazine. Cornell Capa also produced a book documenting the first 100 days of the Kennedy presidency, with fellow Magnum photographers including Henri Cartier-Bresson and Elliott Erwitt.

Cornell Capa died in New York City on May 23, 2008, of natural causes at the age of 90.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Margin of Life: Population and Poverty in the Americas

    (Book by J. Mayone Stycos)

  • Jerusalem: City of Mankind 1974
  • Dan Weiner (ICP library of photographers)
  • The Concerned Photographer
  • The Concerned Photographer 2
  • Language and Faith

• film

  • Toward the Margin of Life

  • Who Am I? A photographic essay

  • Now God Speaks Tzeltal

• photography

  • Some of the one thousand political dissidents who were arrested after the assassination of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. Managua, Nicaragua.

    1956

  • Savoy Ballroom

    (One of the great dancers of Lindy Hop in the Kat's Corner...)

    1939

  • Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip during the Queen's visit to the United States. New York City, USA

    (Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip during the Queen's vis...)

    1957

  • American evangelist Billy Graham delivers a sermon at Madison Square Garden. New York City, USA

    1957

  • Winchester College

    (Early morning cold baths.)

    1951

  • Savoy Ballroom. Harlem, New York City , USA

    1939

  • Babe Ruth. New York City, USA

    1948

  • The funeral of William "Bojangles" Robinson. New York, USA

    1948

  • A contestant at an archery match in the Forest of Arden. Warwickshire, England

    1950

  • Parade drill for the elite Queen's Guard. London , England

    1952

  • Alec Guiness studying his lines. London, England

    1952

  • Adlai Stevenson supporters. Libertyville, Illinois , USA

    1950

  • Political prisoner. Paraguay

    1955

  • Hebrew lesson. Brooklyn, New York City, USA

    1955

  • Supporters of Adlai Stevenson. USA

    1956

  • Adlai Stevenson supporters. USA

    1950

  • The 69th Tactical Missile Squadron. Near Hahn, West Germany

  • Three young men leaning on a counter in a garage. USA

    1958

  • Russian Orthodox monks. Zagorsk, USSR

    1958

  • The Bolshoi Ballet School. Moscow, Russia

    1958

Views

Quotations: "One thing that Life and I agreed right from the start was that one war photographer was enough for my family; I was to be a photographer of peace."

Membership

• American Society Magazine Photographers

• Overseas Press American

Connections

Father:

David Friedmann

Mother:

Julia (Berkowitz) Friedmann

Spouse:

Edith Schwartz

Edith Schwartz Capa helped her husband found the International Center of Photography in Manhattan in 1974. She died at the age of 88.

Brother:

Robert Capa

Robert Capa was a war photographer, founder of Magnum Photos. He was killed by a mine in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Mai 25, 1954.

Brother:

Lazlo Friedmann

Lazlo Friedmann died in 1935.