Barcelona

1931–1932

Munkácsi’s photograph, a Leica and the choice of photography

Recovering in Marseille, he saw Martin Munkácsi’s photograph “Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika” and “suddenly understood that a photograph could fix eternity in an instant”; he gave up painting and bought a Leica with a 50 mm lens, darkening its shiny parts to stay unnoticed.

1933

First exhibitions: New York and Madrid

In 1933 his photographs were first exhibited at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York and then at the Ateneo Club in Madrid.

1934

He meets Chim, and through him Capa

In 1934 he met the young Polish intellectual and photographer David Szymin, known as “Chim” (later David Seymour), and through him the Hungarian photographer Endré Friedmann, the future Robert Capa; he would later found Magnum with them.

June 1940

Captured at Saint-Dié

In June 1940, during the Battle of France, he was captured by German soldiers at St. Dié in the Vosges Mountains and spent 35 months in prisoner-of-war camps doing forced labour.

c. 1943

The third escape succeeds: a farm in Touraine

He twice tried to escape the camp and failed, and was punished with solitary confinement; the third attempt succeeded — he hid on a farm in Touraine and obtained false papers that let him travel in France.

early 1947

Magnum Photos is founded

In early 1947, with Robert Capa, David Seymour, William Vandivert and George Rodger, he founded Magnum — a cooperative picture agency owned by its members; he was assigned India and China, and later also travelled to Pakistan, Burma, Indonesia, Mexico, Japan, Cuba, Canada and the USSR.