We Went Back: Photographs from Europe 1933–1956 by Chim
International Center of Photography, New York
18.01.2013 - 05.05.2013
We Went Back: Photographs from Europe 1933–1956 by Chim, a new exhibition tracing the life and work of one of the most respected photojournalists of 20th-century Europe, will be on view at the International Center of Photography (1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street) January 18–May 5, 2013.
This retrospective exhibition follows the development of Chim’s career as an intellectually engaged photojournalist, placing his life and work in the broader context of 1930s–50s photography and European politics. Born Dawid Szymin in 1911 in Warsaw, Chim, who after World War II published under the name David Seymour, began his career in 1933 photographing regularly for leftist magazines in Paris, even before his close friends and collaborators Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson. His most celebrated reportages include the rise of the Popular Front in prewar France; the Spanish Civil War, which he covered alongside Capa and Gerda Taro; the postwar reconstruction of Europe; and the birth of Israel. In each of his images, he combined rare intellectual acumen and emotional intelligence.
“Chim was a keen observer of European political affairs, from the beginnings of the antifascist struggle to the rebuilding of countries ravaged by World War II,” said ICP Curator Cynthia Young, who organized the exhibition. “Although war formed the backdrop to much of his reportage, Chim was not known primarily for his war photography. Through his images of this period of radical upheaval, he emerges as a thoughtful reporter and a creator of elegant compositions of startling grace and beauty.”
Some of his photographs are well known—a woman nursing a child during a political meeting in Spain, a Polish girl in front of a drawing of her “home” after World War II, Picasso in front of his painting Guernica, a wedding in the new state of Israel—but other lesser known images are just as striking—workers at the Vatican waiting for lunch, a tomato garden in the postwar ruins of Frankfurt, children playing on Omaha Beach in front of a half-sunk military boat. These images delineate a sophisticated documentary practice in which Chim infused the informative detail with metaphor.
We Went Back encompasses more than 150 mainly vintage black-and-white prints, previously unseen color prints—including a newly discovered box of transparencies from 1947—and personal ephemera. All of the material in the show is from the collections of ICP and Chim’s nephew Ben Shneiderman, niece Helen Sarid, and extended family. [Read more HERE]