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A Prodigal Son Returns A trove of photographs finds a home in his native Hungary.

in 1954 while on assign- ment for Life magazine. Cornell Capa sold the first portfolio to the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum in 1991 and gave the second to ICP the following year. As for the third, says ICP director Willis Hartshorn, Cornell was hoping for Paris, Capa’s sometimes home base, or . But “we weren’t really actively motivated to place them,” adds Hartshorn. “We were more concerned over time that it go to the right place.” In early 2006, with Cornell’s health failing, the Hungarian-born journalist Kati Marton helped Whelan approach the Hungarian government on his behalf. As Ambassador Andras Simo- nyi, then Hungary’s envoy to In 1931 an 18-year-old the war; and then for several The set, published in 1991 the U.S., recalls, “They asked bohemian called Endre weeks in 1948, shooting in an edition of three, was me, ‘Is the Hungarian gov- Friedmann fled from his photographs that later ran assembled by Capa’s biogra- ernment interested? After all, native Budapest to Berlin, in the American magazines pher, Richard Whelan, and the Capas were Hungarian.’” after having been arrested Illustrated and Holiday. his youngest brother, Cor- They had found the during a political crackdown, More than 60 years nell, also a photographer and right person. Simonyi’s

one of the many to roil later, in early 2009, Capa the founder of the Interna- aunt, the photographer Ata R OB

Hungary during the 20th was effectively repatri- tional Center of Photography Kando, and her friend, the CA ERT century. Before long, he had ated by his homeland, a in New York. The portfolio photographer Eva Besnyo,

reinvented himself with a cultural milestone that was includes Capa’s candid shots had both grown up with P Co By A © 2001 new, Americanized name— little noted by the Western of Trotsky speaking in 1932, Capa in Budapest. Besnyo Robert Capa—and built a media. On behalf of the which helped make his name; helped him get his first job formidable reputation as a of the Hungarian National his iconic images of Repub- as a photographer in Berlin, cosmopolitan war photogra- Museum in Budapest, the lican soldiers in the Spanish and he and Kando lived in pher. He returned to Hun- Hungarian government paid Civil War; his photographs the same house when both C rnell gary only three times: once 300 million forints (about of the D-Day landings at were refugees in Paris in the

for a few weeks in 1933, $1.4 million at the time) for Normandy, postwar Europe, 1930s. “I had a longstand- a p after Hitler rose to power a master set of 937 of the the Soviet Union and Israel; ing passion for photography a/Magnu in Germany; again for an photographer’s definitive and his last image, captured and Capa,” Simonyi says. evening in 1947, to check on works, as well as 48 vintage moments before he stepped “So I really got into it.” m Ph relatives who had survived prints and other material. on a landmine in Vietnam (He was also spurred by o t o

Robert Capa, A Tame Wolf, Hungary, 1933. s

42 art&antiques March 2010 news

the current world economic crisis. Yet Capa’s work itself has been warmly received. A small 10-day show of high- lights from the collection at the National Museum drew 15,000 visitors. Starting in July a bigger, more expansive show at the Ludwig Museum attracted 65,000 visitors over four months. “People really enjoyed it, and were really touched,” says Livia Paldi, chief curator at the Mucsarnok/Kunsthalle Budapest, who organized the Ludwig show. A smaller exhibition is now touring the country, and Paldi says that her show is likely to travel to Pecs later this year. As for Capa, his identity is being reinvented once again, this time as a the fact that, some years convincing,” Orsos says. The work finally arrived product of the Hungarian

before, his colleagues in “It required negotiations in Hungary in stages, from avant-garde. Paldi points R OB

Mexico City hadn’t been about the price, the nature January through April 2009. out that like Laszlo Moholy- CA ERT given the chance to purchase of the acquisition and which Although the original plan Nagy and André Kertesz

the so-called “Mexican museum was going to receive was for Budapest to build before him, Capa’s ideas P Co By A © 2001 suitcase,” a cache of 4,300 it.” (Sadly, both Whelan a new center dedicated to about life and art were negatives taken by Capa, and Cornell Capa died Capa’s life and work, that forged when he participated David Seymour and Capa’s before this was achieved.) idea is now stalled due to in the circle of Lajos Kas- lover, , during sak, a linchpin of early the Spanish Civil War; it is 20th-century Hungarian C rnell now owned by the ICP.) modernism. And Simonyi

But in 2007, because of notes out that Capa was a p some governmental disagree- born in the building that a/Magnu ments over foreign policy, once housed the Pilvax Cafe, Simonyi was replaced as where the plot for the 1848 m Ph ambassador. The deal lay revolution was hatched. o

dormant, recalls Hartshorn, “He was one of those t o until Jakab Orsos, the incredible cosmopolitan Davis; director of the Hungarian photographers that Hungary

Cultural Center in New should be proud of,” says d S

York, and Istvan Hiller, Simonyi. “But he never ey Hungary’s minister of denied that he came from mo ur/Magnu culture and education, heard downtown Budapest.” about it. “It didn’t require —Carol Kino m Ph From top: Robert Capa, Leon Trotsky lecturing Danish students on the history of the o

Russian Revolution, Nov. 27, 1932; David Seymour, photo of Capa (at left) in Hungary, 1948. t o s

46 art&antiques March 2010