The Enduring Image: Photographs from the Dr. Saul Unter Collection
104. Robert Capa
1913-1954
Death of a Loyalist Soldier, 1936 Gelatin silver print with applied pigment, probably printed in the 1930s or early 1940s. 10 5/8 x 13 1/4 in. (27 x 33.7 cm) ‘Life Photo by Robert Capa’ credit stamp, extensively annotated with publication usage information in unidentifed hands in ink, crayon and pencil, and with typed caption label and various Time, LIFE and other stamps and labels, all on the verso. Estimate $80,000-120,000 Provenance Time Inc. Picture Collection, New York Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, 2000 Literature Vu, 23 September 1936, no. 445, p. 1106 LIFE, 12 July 1937, vol. 3, no. 2. p. 19 Capa, Death in the Making (1938), cover Whelan, This Is War! Robert Capa at Work, back cover and fgs. 40, 48, 58, 59, and 77 Aperture, Heart of Spain: Robert Capa’s Photographs of the Spanish Civil War, p. 26 Aperture, Robert Capa: Photographs, p. 39 Capa, Images of War, pp. 22-23 Museum Ludwig, Sammlung Gruber: Photographie des 20. Jahrhunderts, p. 202
Robert Capa’s Death of a Loyalist Soldier, the photographer’s most famous image and an instantly recognizable classic, brought a new immediacy to photojournalism. Capa’s photograph, which captures the last second of a soldier’s life with graphic intensity, is both shocking and riveting, and conveys the visceral experience of combat. Death of a Loyalist Soldier caused a sensation upon its initial appearance, and has remained one of the most unforgettable images within our visual culture. Capa took this photograph in Spain in September 1936 while on assignment for Vu magazine. It was frst published in Vu on September 23, on a page spread of Capa’s photographs of the Civil War in Spain. The confict in Spain was of intense interest to the storyconscious Capa. The noble fght of Spanish citizens against the fascist forces led by General Francisco Franco, who was funded and armed by Hitler and Mussolini, resonated with him deeply. Armed with his Leica, and his ability to get into the heat of the action, Capa plunged into Spain looking for great images.
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Death of Loyalist Soldier reached a much larger audience when it was published in LIFE magazine in July 1937. Its appearance there not only propelled Capa into the top ranks of photojournalism, it also signaled a shif in American opinion about the confict. Capa’s photograph runs the width of the page. The article beneath it notes: “On July 17 the Spanish Civil War will be one year old . . . When the war started, most U.S. citizens looked on the Loyalists as a half-crazy, irresponsible, murderous scum that had turned on its honorable betters. A year of war has taught the U.S. more of Spain . . . The reason for the civil war was simply that the people of Spain had fred their bosses for fagrant incompetence and the bosses had refused to be fred.” This is followed by six pages of photographs and text devoted to the war, with contributions by Ernest Hemingway, addressing the seriousness of the confict. This coverage signaled that the situation in Spain was now being taken seriously in the mainstream media. Capa’s photograph was the lead image of the story, and its graphic depiction of the war brought the confict home to Americans. It is, as Capa authority Robert Whelan observes, “almost universally acknowledged as one of the greatest war photographs ever made.” Whelan’s in-depth account of the taking of this picture, and the discussion about the locale and circumstances in which it was made, appears in his book This is War! Robert Capa at Work (pp. 53-87). The print ofered here comes originally from the Time Inc. Picture Collection. As the overlapping strata of usage information on its reverse makes clear, Death of Loyalist Soldier has a publication history that is nearly too long to document. It appeared repeatedly within the pages of LIFE and Time magazines in the decades following its making, and was illustrated in countless anthologies of the magazines’ best images. In many cases, this was the print used for reproduction. The continued use of this photograph shows that, long afer its newsworthiness had passed, its impact remained undiminished, and Death of Loyalist Soldier remains one of the most indelible images of the 20th century.
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