Gerda Taro worked for less than a year as a war photographer, yet her pictures ran in French illustrated magazines and newspapers during the Spanish Civil War and are now held by the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. Many were published under a joint credit with Robert Capa, and some were later printed as his alone. Studying Gerda Taro is therefore two lessons at once: how a photographer composes for the printed page, and how credit lines can drift once pictures leave the photographer’s hands.
Her photographs date from 1936 and 1937 and are not flagged public domain or CC0 by the Met, the Art Institute of Chicago or the Cleveland Museum of Art, none of which lists work by her in its open-access collection. This guide describes her work in text only. Her pictures are protected and not free to use. For historic images cleared for reuse, browse the MGD museum inspiration collection.
Who was Gerda Taro?
She was born Gerta Pohorylle on 1 August 1910 in Stuttgart, to a Jewish family from Galicia, according to the ICP and the German National Library’s biographical record. The family later moved to Leipzig. In 1933, after the Nazis took power, she was detained for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, and she left Germany for Paris.
In Paris she met the Hungarian photographer André Friedmann; accounts date the meeting to 1934 or 1935. Magnum Photos records that she worked as a picture editor at the agency Alliance Photo, and that together they invented “Robert Capa”, presented as a successful American photographer whose pictures could command higher fees. Friedmann took the name for himself, and she adopted the professional name Gerda Taro.
A dated career outline
- August 1936, Barcelona. Magnum says the couple arrived in Barcelona on 5 August 1936, a few weeks after the war began. One of their early stories followed a group of militiawomen training on a beach near the city. The ICP holds Taro’s photograph of one of these women in training, dated August 1936.
- Autumn 1936, the Córdoba front. Taro and Capa photographed Republican militias in Andalusia, including around Villa del Río, according to recent research on their September 1936 negatives. Many pictures from these months were published with the joint credit “Capa & Taro”, which makes the authorship of individual frames hard to separate.
- 1937, independent work. In 1937 more of her pictures appeared under her own name, notably in the Paris evening paper Ce Soir. In Valencia she photographed the aftermath of an air raid, including a crowd gathered at the gate of the city morgue, a picture now in the ICP collection.
- July 1937, Brunete. She photographed the Republican offensive at Brunete, west of Madrid. During the retreat on 25 July 1937 she was gravely injured when a tank struck the car she was riding on, and she died the next day, 26 July, in hospital. Some accounts name the hospital at El Escorial; others name a British field hospital nearby.
- 1 August 1937, Paris. Her funeral in Paris, on what would have been her 27th birthday, drew large crowds. She is buried in Père Lachaise cemetery, where her memorial was designed by Alberto Giacometti.
- 1938, Death in the Making. A photobook of Spanish Civil War pictures by Capa and Taro, dedicated to her. The ICP and Magnum describe its layout as the work of André Kertész.
Attribution: what is hers, and what is shared
Credit is the central issue in her story. In 1936 the couple sold pictures together, and editors printed them as “Capa & Taro”, as “Capa”, or occasionally as “Taro”. After her death, many images circulated under Capa’s name alone. The ICP’s 2007 retrospective, whose catalogue was written by the German biographer Irme Schaber and the Capa scholar Richard Whelan, reassigned a number of photographs long credited to Capa to Taro.
One tool in that research was film format. Several accounts say Taro mostly worked with a Rollei-type camera, which makes square negatives, while Capa preferred a 35mm Leica, which makes rectangular ones. Sorting negatives by shape helped separate their work. It is not a perfect test. The same accounts note that the two often swapped cameras, and some accounts say Taro also used a Leica. A Spanish academic study has questioned the format criteria for some of her 1936 pictures.
The debate reaches Capa’s much-discussed Spanish photograph, The Falling Soldier (1936). Some researchers, most recently in reports published in 2026, have argued that Taro may have taken it, pointing to the camera she carried that day; others reply that a shared credit shows how a byline could be lost but cannot prove who made a given exposure. The attribution remains contested, and this guide treats it as Capa’s with the dispute noted.
In December 2007 the ICP received the “Mexican Suitcase”: three boxes holding about 4,500 35mm negatives from the Spanish Civil War by Capa, Taro and David Seymour (Chim), missing since 1939. Researchers attributed roughly a third of the frames to each photographer, and the ICP exhibited the find from September 2010 to May 2011. The suitcase added new Taro frames and clarified others, which is why credits in older books may differ from current ICP records.
What to look at in a Gerda Taro photograph
The square frame. A square negative has no natural top-to-bottom or side-to-side direction. Taro’s square pictures often put a figure centrally and let the background fill the corners, so the frame feels stable even when the subject is in motion. Square compositions also crop well into both portrait and landscape layouts, which made them flexible for magazine designers.
Low viewpoints. A camera held at waist level, as a twin-lens reflex is, looks slightly up at standing people. The Capa Space’s 2025 exhibition of her Spanish work highlights her intimate perspectives and dynamic compositions. A slightly raised subject gains weight on the page and draws the viewer into the scene.
People at work, not just combat. Her documented subjects include training, refugees, civilians after an air raid, and soldiers resting between actions. The story is told through what happens around the fighting as much as the fighting itself.
Black and white built for print. Her pictures were made for halftone reproduction on newsprint and magazine paper. Strong contrast between figure and ground survives coarse printing, which is why so many of her compositions rely on a clear silhouette.
How designers can borrow from Gerda Taro
- Shoot or crop square for flexibility. A square master image adapts to feeds, covers and banners. Keep the subject near the centre and give the corners breathing room.
- Use a low angle with intent. Looking slightly up at a subject gives it presence. Reserve the effect for people or products that should feel confident and grounded.
- Tell the story around the event. In editorial and brand storytelling, the preparation and the aftermath often say more than the peak moment. Sequence pictures as before, during and after.
- Design for the worst reproduction. Test photographs at small sizes and in greyscale. If the silhouette still reads, the image will hold up across screens and print.
- Get the credit right. Her story shows how easily a byline can slip. Keep a source record for every image you publish, check archive credits against the holding institution, and update them when research changes. The guide to public domain art covers how to confirm the status of historic images before you use them.
For comparison, the Robert Capa guide covers his longer career and the picture-story layouts that grew from their shared work in Spain.
Where to see her work
The ICP in New York holds her archive, including vintage prints, negatives and publications. Its 2007 retrospective toured to the Barbican in London, and the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona later presented her work with the ICP. The Steidl and ICP catalogue by Irme Schaber and Richard Whelan and François Maspero’s biography Out of the Shadows are useful published sources on her life and photographs. Treat all reproductions as protected and license them through the ICP or the relevant rights holder.
Frequently asked questions
Who was Gerda Taro?
Gerda Taro, born Gerta Pohorylle in Stuttgart in 1910, was a photojournalist who covered the Spanish Civil War from 1936. She was injured at the Brunete front and died on 26 July 1937.
Did Gerda Taro take photographs credited to Robert Capa?
Yes, some. Research by the ICP, Irme Schaber and Richard Whelan reassigned a number of photographs once credited to Capa to Taro, and many 1936 pictures carry the joint credit “Capa & Taro”. Whether she took The Falling Soldier is still disputed.
Are Gerda Taro’s photographs public domain?
The museums used for this guide do not flag any of her work as public domain or CC0, and her archive is held by the International Center of Photography. Treat her photographs as protected and license them for reproduction.
What can designers learn from Gerda Taro?
How square framing, low viewpoints and strong silhouettes make photographs that hold up in print and crop well, and why every image needs a checked, documented credit line.
