Gerda Taro

The facts we know about Gerda Taro are very few: We know that she was born Gerda Pohorylles; that in 1934 she left her home in Stuttgart for Paris after reading Dos Passos' 1919 (which is how she learned what English she knew); that in Paris she met Robert Capa, with whom she went to Spain at the start of the Civil War; that she died in Spain six days short of her twenty-sixth birthday.

She became an important part of the legend that surrounded Robert Capa, as well as a legend in her own right. They met as young, impoverished students, and worked together during the times of the Popular Front demonstrations and sitdown strikes. They invented a fictitious tale of the rich American photographer named Robert Capa, changed their names, and created a photo agency. It was easier to sell the work of a famous photographer to the Paris newspapers, Vu, Regards and Ce Soir, as the magazine publishers were less interested in, and paid less for the photographs of the unknown Hungarian, Andre Friedmann (Capa's real name). Together, Gerda and Bob went to Spain to cover the Civil War.

Capa was called back to Paris where he received an assignment for both he and Gerda to go to China. Before he left the front he had given Gerda his Leica, and having learned from him, she continued to document the war. While Capa was in Paris, Gerda Taro was accidentally killed by a tank during the chaos of retreat at Brunete.

Her body was brought to Paris where her funeral was an occasion of great emotional outpouring by her colleagues and friends, and a political demonstration by the Front Popular. She was buried at the Pere Lachaise Cemetery next to the grave of the French poet Barbusse.