David Seymour
American, b. Poland 1911, d. Suez 1956
David Szymin was
born in 1911 in Warsaw
into a family of publishers that produced works in Yiddish and Hebrew. His
family moved to Russia at
the outbreak of the First World War, returning to Warsaw in 1919.
After studying
printing in Leipzig and chemistry and physics at
the Sorbonne in the 1930s, Szymin stayed on in Paris. David Rappaport, a family friend who
owned the pioneering picture agency Rap, lent him a camera. One of Szymin's
first stories, about night workers, was influenced by Brassaï's Paris de Nuit
(1932). Szymin - or 'Chim' - began working as a freelance photographer. From
1934, his picture stories appeared regularly in Paris-Soir and Regards. Through
Maria Eisner and the new Alliance
agency, Chim met Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa.
From 1936 to 1938
Chim photographed the Spanish Civil War, and after it was over he went to Mexico on an
assignment with a group of Spanish Republican émigrés. On the outbreak of the
Second World War he moved to New York,
where he adopted the name David Seymour. Both his parents were killed by the
Nazis. Seymour
served in the US Army (1942-45), winning a medal for his work in intelligence.
In 1947, along
with Cartier-Bresson, Capa, George Rodger, and William Vandivert, he founded
Magnum Photos. The following year he was commissioned by UNICEF to photograph Europe's children in need. He went on to photograph major
stories across Europe, Hollywood stars on
European locations, and the emergence of the State of Israel. After Robert
Capa's death he became the new president of Magnum. He held this post until 10
November 1956, when, traveling near the Suez Canal
to cover a prisoner exchange, he was killed by Egyptian machine-gun fire.
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