Edition 2011
David (Chim) Seymour
Born in 1911 in Warsaw. Deceased in 1956 in Suez.
Chim was born Dawid Szymin (Warsaw, November 20, 1911–Suez, November 10, 1956) into an intellectual family of publishers of Yiddish and Hebrew books. In 1933, after studying graphic arts in Leipzig, he turned to photography to support himself while continuing his studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. Soon he was recognized for his strong photographs of political events of the Popular Front and became a regular contributor to the French Communist magazine Regards. Like Capa, he covered the entirety of the Spanish Civil War. But unlike Capa and Taro, who sought to photograph on the front lines, Chim’s great achievement is his focus on individuals outside of battle: from formal portraits of major figures to images of soldiers on the home front and peasants laboring in small towns. He was attuned to the complicated politics of the war and imbued his images with nuanced meaning. He is, with Robert Capa, one of the founding fathers of Magnum Photos agency, in 1947.
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