David Seymour's 'Reflections From The Heart'
David Seymour co-founded Magnum, the elite photojournalism agency, in 1947 with a group that included Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa. Seymour died covering the Suez crisis in 1956.
David Seymour chronicled wars and the lives they shattered from the 1930s to 1950s. In the process, the photographer, who went by the nickname Chim, somehow found a way to get close enough to capture the spirit — and hope — in his subjects.
"If you look at many of Chim's photos, and ask yourself what happened in the 3 minutes before that photo was taken, you'll mostly come to the conclusion that he made a personal relationship with these people," says Seymour's nephew, Ben Shneiderman, who contributed to an exhibit of Seymour's works currently at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
"He didn't surprise them, he didn't photograph them from a distance or over their shoulders...," Shneiderman says. "He made a close, personal and emotional relationship."
'Reflections from the Heart': Photographs by Chim
Selections from the David Seymour (Chim) exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., through June 4, 2006.
Woman at Land Distribution Meeting, Estremadura, Spain, 1936
Children Playing with a Broken Doll, Naples, Italy, 1948
Blind Boy, Who Lost His Arms in the War, Reading with His Lips, Rome, Italy, 1948
Terezka, a Child in a Center for Disturbed Children, Produced These Scrawls as a Picture of Home, Poland, 1948
First Child Born in Alma, Israel, 1951
Sophia Loren (at 19), 1953
Arturo Toscanini in his Library, with Death Masks of Beethoven, Wagner and Verdi, Milan, Italy, 1954
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