Robert Capa's legendary Mexican Suitcase, exposed as enlarged contact sheets in the “Documents” section alongside “30 Years of New York Magazine” is also the subject of a French book published in two volumes by Actes Sud. It is based on Steidl/ICP’s American edition published for the New York exhibition, but still doesn’t clarify the mystery of the suitcase’s disappearance. Contrary to the hopes of many, it doesn’t provide any information or resolve debate about the controversial shot of the soldier dying at war. A section of negative would have solved the mystery, its absence could explain this long disappearance or indicate a financial transaction?

The exhibition, organized by the International Center of Photography (ICP New York) and its curator Cynthia Young, has the advantage of revealing the suitcase contents otherwise lost since 1939. It contained in reality three little boxes of nearly 4500 negatives. Negatives from the Spanish Civil War taken between 1936 and 1939 not only by Robert Capa, but also by his traveling mates Chim (David Seymour) and Gerda Taro, Capa’s girlfriend who was killed on this same battlefield in July, 1937. These negatives complete our documentation of the Spanish war and above all of the work of these three fervent Republican and antifascist photographers.

Directed by Cynthia Young, the “Spanish Suitcase” is comprised of two volumes revealing the entirety of the recovered negatives, for the first time providing a chronological order to the reportage as well as providing a vast series of unpublished pictures. Original documents, newspapers and magazines are also featured, as well as comments and critical analyses.

They reveal the importance of these three photographers as founders of a new approach to war photography.

Bernard Perrine
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr

Rencontres d’Arles 2011
July 4 – September 18

La Révolution mexicaine
Espace VanGogh