Guarding Photojournalism's Past, Building its Future: Cornell Capa and the International Center of Photography

FAIN: FEL-288417-23

Nadya Bair
Hamilton College (Clinton, NY 13323-1295)

Research and writing leading to a book on Cornell Capa (1918-2008), a photographer and curator, and the International Photography Center (ICP), which he founded in 1974.

This project offers a new account of photography’s institutional development in the late 20th century. It focuses on Cornell Capa – the Jewish-Hungarian born, naturalized American, brother of the famed photojournalist Robert Capa, who dedicated himself to preserving the work of news photographers whose massive archives were in danger of being discarded and forgotten. In 1974, Capa founded the International Center of Photography (ICP), New York’s first museum, archive, and educational forum devoted exclusively to photography. Based in exclusive access to Capa’s papers and ICP’s institutional records, I offer the first critical analysis of ICP’s origins and Cornell Capa’s 60-year career as a photojournalist, curator, publisher, and institution-builder. By looking at Capa and ICP, I demonstrate not only how major historical events became equated with a few iconic news photographs, but also how the history of press photography became entangled with the language of the art world.