Lovestory - Robert Capa and Gerda Taro

Robert Capa (born Endre Friedmann) and Gerda Taro (born Gerta Pohorylle) met in Paris in the mid-1930s, around 1934–1935, when both were émigré photographers moved by anti‑fascist politics and the city’s exile community.

They invented and shared the professional identity “Robert Capa” as a marketable, ostensibly American photographer to increase sales and avoid political suspicion; Taro began using the name Gerda Taro while many early Spanish Civil War images were issued under the joint Robert Capa imprint in 1936.

Their partnership moved to the front lines of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, where Taro emerged as a fearless war photographer; she was fatally wounded during the Battle of Brunete and died on 26 July 1937, a death that made her the first female photojournalist known to have died covering frontline combat.