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Controversies over Gerda Taro’s Reasoned Catalogue
Jose Manuel Susperregui
Original Title
Controversias sobre el catálogo razonado de Gerda Taro
Revista DISCURSOS FOTOGRAFICOS
DOI 10.5433/1984-7939.2012v8n13p137
Controversies over Gerda Taro’s 
Reasoned Catalogue
Jose Manuel Susperregui
CONTROVERSIES OVER GERDA TARO’S 
REASONED CATALOGUE
The cataloguing of Gerda Taro’s photography is divided into two 
parts even though her brief career as a photojournalist lasted just 
eleven months. The first part covers the first trip to the Spanish Civil 
War fronts she made with Robert Capa in the summer of 1936, in 
August and September. The second part includes a number of trips in 
mid-February, 1937, when she returned to Spain with Capa to settle in 
Madrid. They travelled to Almería and the Almadén mines in Ciudad 
Real and then returned to Madrid. Taro stayed in the Spanish capital 
and her first report appeared on the March 18 issue of Regards 
Magazine; she also worked for the evening paper Ce Soir. This 
professional information is important as her reports on the battle of 
Guadalajara, the Jarama front and Valencia mark the beginning of 
her freelance work. Following a brief stay in Paris she went back to 
Madrid for a week to photograph the Jarama front for a second time. 
In May she also went back to Valencia at the time of the rebel 
bombardment and took photographs of dead bodies at the morgue. 
Back in Madrid she met with Capa and accompanied him to the 
Navacerrada front, where they stayed until the first days of June. In 
Madrid she photographed the ammunition factory and the 
Carabanchel district, where the government forces were responding to 
the rebel siege by throwing grenades with slingshots. She travelled 
through Spain with Capa in the second half of June and covered 
General Lukacs’ funeral in Valencia. They later moved on to the fronts 
in Peñarroya, La Granjuela and Los Blázquez in the province of 
Córdoba.
In July she did the most important work of her career, including 
covering the opening of the Second International Congress of 
Antifascist Writers for the Defense of Culture which took place in 
Valencia on July 4. Two days after that she went to Brunete but 
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returned the following day and covered the Writers’ Congress, which 
had moved to Madrid.
After a brief stay in Paris, where she met with Capa for the last 
time, she returned to Madrid with the idea of resuming her coverage 
of the Brunete front for a few days and then returning to Paris. 
However, she was killed on the eve of her trip back when her car hit a 
Republican tank as she was leaving the front. 
According to her biographer Irme Schaber, the photographs 
Gerda Taro took on her first trip were published in six magazines and 
the second part of her work appeared in 49 newspapers and 
magazines. The former, her first trip to Spanish Civil War with Robert 
Capa, is the hardest to find out about. The aim of Irme Schaber and 
Richard Whelan’s research work was to identify which of the 
photographs of Taro and Capa had been taken by each of them. The 
criterion they used, however, namely crediting the rectangular prints of 
this first trip to Robert Capa and the squared ones to Gerda Taro, is 
highly questionable; the format criterion is apt to be called into 
question given that Robert Capa’s style is present in all these 
photographs, which might lead us to conclude that Gerda Taro did 
not actually do any photography work on this trip or if she did, her 
photos amounted to mere residual images.
By contrast, the photographs from the second part of her career 
can be identified with certainty. One of the great findings in the 
Mexican Suitcase is the negatives of Gerda Taro’s reports, which 
reveal the difference of her compositions in relation to Capa’s 
photographs, the latter often coming out as disproportionate. Capa’s 
trademark formal instability is often seen in his negatives, when he
does not weigh up his compositions, often dragged down to the left or 
when his framing crops subjects’ bodies at random. Gerda Taro’s style 
is more conventional and harmonious; she thus sets herself apart and 
frees herself of her professional link to Robert Capa.
In view of the above, and given that Irme Schaber and Richard 
Whelan’s arguments in Taro’s reasoned catalogue are far from being 
conclusive, this study will focus on the first part of her work. 
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Much Speculation, Little Information
Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, the most famous couple in 
photojournalism, are also the most controversial when it comes to 
crediting them with their own individual professional merits. Even 
though much has been written on both these war photographers, 
actual research has been in fact scarce and a high level of speculation 
is involved. The date of their arrival in Barcelona in the summer of 
1936 is still unknown, as well the as itinerary they followed before 
returning to Paris in late September the same year. The location of the 
photographs is also surrounded by controversy, especially the site 
where Falling Soldier was taken. The official version affirmed it had 
been taken at Cerro Muriano but in 2009 this photograph was proved 
to have been taken at Espejo, a different site, also in Córdoba. This 
fact, which might at first seem secondary information, is actually 
relevant. In the case of this particular photograph, its location has 
resolved the debate around this image and the question of whether or 
not it had been staged. Once if was found out that Robert Capa had 
been in Espejo in late August or on the first three days of September 
in 1936, the local Civil War historiography allowed it to be confirmed 
that it is a staged photograph given that there are no records of 
fighting or casualties during Capa’s stay in the area. The photos in this 
series by Capa, all of them staged, show up to five dead militiamen.
There are further gaps in relation to this first trip Capa and Taro 
made to Civil War Spain; it is not certain, for instance, how they 
arrived in Barcelona. First, the couple was believed to have flown on a 
plane that was owned by the director of Vu magazine, Lucien Vogel 
and to have been in involved in an accident in which Vogel suffered an 
arm injury and the couple emerged unhurt. This version has been 
disproved by François Fontaine (2003, p.130),
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Richard Whelan affirms that Robert Capa arrived in Spain on the same 
plane as Lucien Vogel accompanied by Gerda Taro. The photographs 
published in the special issue of Vu only show three men boarding the 
plane (Vogel, Ristelhueber and the pilot). Vu makes no mention of the 
other two journalists [Capa and Taro] in the report of this trip to Spain 
nor do the couple appear in any of the documents published in relation 
to the accident. Robert Capa and Gerda Taro must have arrived in 
Spain on a different plane.
Their exact arrival and departure dates of this first trip are also 
unknown. They are believed to have arrived in Barcelona around the 
first week of August and then gone on to the Aragon front, where they 
visited the positions in Huesca, Santa Eulalia, Tardienta and 
Leciñena, but their date of departure is unknown. Their next stop was 
Madrid, more specifically the Sierra de Guadarrama front, and from 
there they went to Talavera de la Reina and Toledo and then to 
Andalucía and on to the fronts in Espejo and Cerro Muriano in the 
province of Córdoba. 
Beyond the ambiguity of this information, their own photographs 
also fail to provide many sure references. However, there have been 
those who taking advantage of this lack of information have 
fabricated events which can in fact be easily disproved. Jaume 
Miratvilles (1977: p.10), for instance, Progaganda Commisioner of the 
Generalitatof Catalonia, tells the following story, 
It is true that Jaume Miratvilles was president of the Propaganda 
Comissariat at the Generalitat of Catalonia, but the fact is that this 
agency was created by decree on October 3, 1936, that is, one whole 
month after Robert Capa took the photo of the soldier and more than 
one week after it was published by the first time in the French 
magazine Vu.
A Profile of Gerda Taro
According to the different biographies of Robert Capa, the war 
photographer and his girlfriend had different types of roles. From the 
moment Taro invented the Robert Capa character, described as an 
American photographer who took excellent pictures and charged 
three times as much as his European colleagues, Taro took a role as 
Capa’s trade representative and manager and she was in charge of 
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The «star» of the Spanish Civil War in the field of photography 
was Cappa (sic), and the famous snapshot which made him 
famous, the one with the soldier still on his feet with the rifle 
sliding from his hand suspended in the air is totally authentic. 
Some have spoken of a photomontage. Absolutely not. He 
developed it the labs at the Comissariat and he came to show it 
to me, literally fascinated and surprised by a scene so far 
unprecedented in the history of photography.
selling his photographs. Within their business approach, Robert Capa 
was in charge of war photography work, André Ernö Friedmann 
(Capa’s real name) was the appointed lab technician and Taro was in 
charge of management.
This was in principle Taro’s role and professional success: the 
invention of a new photographer’s persona, but that is in fact all part 
of the legend. The change of identity of this couple has always been 
presented as an original feature. However, there are many previous 
examples amongst photographers and artists, especially those of 
Hungarian origin, who changed their names to make them easier to 
pronounce: the Hungarian photographer Brassaï was born Gyula 
Halász; Stefan Lorant, a Hungarian editor, was born Lóránt Istúan; 
the painter and photographer Lásló Moholy-Nagy’s real name was 
László Weisz and the Polish photographer David Seymour’s was born 
Dawid Szymin. Taro’s invention of the Robert Capa character, however, 
was more than a change of name, it was identity theft, or in other 
words, profit oriented falsification.
Taro on her part has been described as a polyglot, and as a 
worldly, groundbreaking, ahead-of-her-time woman, with unstable 
romantic relationships. When it comes to Taro there are no greys, 
according to Irme Schaber (2006, p.10), views tend to be rather 
extreme,
Her biographer further reflects (2006, p.8) that Taro’s profile 
could be summarized in the following way,
Taro’s political commitment also helps understand her exile in 
September 1933, when she decided to flee to Paris after having been 
arrested and detained for a week. Her knowledge of languages and 
typing skills helped her make a living, especially from 1935, when she 
met German photographer Fred Stein and started writing his photo 
captions. That was her first contact with the photography world. After 
that she got a job at Alliance Photo with the help of her friend Maria 
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Taro is often depicted either as a saint or as a prostitute.
She lived and worked with a world famous man, she was 
young and beautiful, she met a tragic end.
Eisner. It was at this agency where Taro got to know the ins and outs 
of the photojournalism business, that is, the value of news photos and 
the negotiations involved; her responsibilities also included the 
management of freelance photographer Robert Capa’s reports.
Her knowledge of French, English and some Spanish and the 
skills she acquired at Alliance Photo were crucial for the carrying out 
of the “Robert Capa” project, all she needed now was a safe conduct 
to accompany Capa on his assignments. Since she did not have a 
journalist’s position at Alliance Photo, she had no access to press cards
nor could she register as a journalist, but Irme Roma, head of ABC 
Press, gave her a press card in February 1936. Taro and Capa saw a 
great opportunity in the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and they 
had the knowledge and credentials necessary to embark on an 
adventure that left a definitive mark in their lives.
Gerda Taro’s Identity On Her First Trip
Besides the war photographs taken at the different fronts Capa 
and Taro visited, there is also a series of photos of Gerda taken by 
Capa as well as photos in which she appears by chance. The 
information these photos provide is interesting as they allow Gerda’s 
purpose on this first trip to be assessed. Taro is wearing the same 
sweatshirt in all these photographs. Richard Whelan (2007, p.66) 
refers to Gerda Taro’s Rolleiflex camera in only one of the photos 
[Fig. 1]. Taro’s posture seems to suggest she is actually carrying a 
camera and this is most likely the case even though the tiny size of the 
photograph does not allow a clear view of the detail of the camera. In 
the second image [Fig. 2], which seems to have been taken at a place 
close to the one in the previous picture, Taro is seen looking at a bomb 
crater but she is not taking a picture as she is clearly not carrying a 
camera. In the following picture [Fig. 3], Taro is standing second left 
in the top row; she is posing with three militiawomen and six 
militiamen. Interestingly, photojournalists usually pose carrying their 
cameras for these group photographs so that their profession is clearly 
defined, but in this photo Taro is not holding a camera. 
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Photo: Robert Capa
From: Richard Whelan (2007)
Fig. 2
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Richard Whelan (2007)
Fig. 1
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Photo: Robert Capa
From: ICP
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Capa: Cara a Cara (1999)
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Fig. 5
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Capa: Cara a Cara (1999)
Fig. 6
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Richard Whelan (2007)
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Photo: Robert Capa
From: Le Matin (1936)
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Richard Whelan (2007)
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Pictures four and five [Fig. 4 and Fig. 5] were taken by Robert 
Capa at a rally at a Villa Alicia farm near Cerro Muriano. In the first 
photo a militiaman harangues a group formed exclusively by men 
except for one woman whose head appears in the box on the left [Fig. 
5]. The resemblance of this woman’s face to Gerda Taro is 
unmistakable. This time Taro is seen listening to the harangue as just 
another Frente Popular militant while Robert Capa does his 
photography work.
Picture seven [Fig. 7], whose framing leads to the conclusion that 
it was most likely taken either by Hans Namuth or Georg Reisner as it 
is very much in keeping with another photograph signed by both these 
photojournalists, is an important document; the only subjects with 
their backs to the camera are a couple in sweatshirts and espadrilles. 
Judging by their clothing, height and haircuts, these two could well be 
Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, in which case Capa is carrying on 
shoulder straps to his right side two cases typical of war photographers 
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Fig. 9
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Richard Whelan (2007)
of the day. Taro is not carrying anything. The final two pictures [Fig. 8 
and Fig. 9] are posed photos in which there are still no hints of Taro 
being a photojournalist. One detail that cannot go unnoticed is the 
fact thereare no known photographs of Robert Capa on this first trip. 
The only photos of Capa during the Spanish Civil War were taken by 
Gerda Taro on the Segovia front at the end of May or early June in 
1937. One of these two pictures shows Capa’s profile with an Eyemo 
movie camera, in the other one he is looking at the camera while 
carrying the movie camera on his shoulder and the Leica round his 
neck. However, these two photos were not taken during their first trip 
in the summer of 1936 but during Taro’s third trip to Civil War Spain. 
The First Cataloguing Of Robert Capa And Gerda 
Taro’s Photographs
The cataloguing of the work of an artist or creator, including that 
of photojournalists, aims at identifying their work based on the 
available materials. In the case of photographs, negatives are the 
fundamental resource for this activity and next in importance are the 
copies, which are often filed in archives together with other type of 
information such as written notes and documents. In this particular 
case, what Richard Whelan found was disorganized material stacked 
in boxes containing approximately 6,000 old prints with scarcely any 
information on them; he had to resort to newspaper libraries to look 
up magazines issued between 1936 and 1954 in order to find Capa’s 
photos guided by the photo credits. Once the information was dug up 
from the magazines he proceeded to set the original photographs in 
order and found that the numbering on the back of the photos was 
chronological and that there were two types of prints: a rectangular set 
and a squared one. Many of the squared prints had notes at the back 
crediting them to Taro, whereas the rectangular prints had no notes. 
Despite the fact that the first reports published in Vu magazine 
included both rectangular and squared images, all of them credited to 
Capa, Whelan inferred that only the rectangular prints were by Capa 
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and assumed that the square photos had been taken by Taro. Thus did 
Richard Whelan solve the crediting of the jumbled prints and the 
cataloguing of the photographs taken on this so poorly documented 
first trip to Civil War Spain.
The work Richard Whelan did to sort out the photo archives at 
the International Center of Photography with the aim of cataloguing 
the photographs by Taro and Capa in a proper way was indeed an 
arduous but, in my opinion, badly focused task. The notes at the back 
of some of the prints can certainly provide interesting clues, though 
not entirely reliable ones. These photos passed through many 
newspapers and magazines newsrooms and the authors of the notes at 
the back and the criteria they used to make them remain unknown.
The authors of the notes are the final link along an information 
transfer chain, that is, they were not first-hand witnesses. Thus, 
Richard Whelan found that photos that had been credited to Robert 
Capa at some point were on other occasions credited to Gerda Taro. 
An objective analysis of a photograph should not be carried out 
based on the back of a print but on the front, it is the photo image 
itself where we have to look for distinctive features which might help 
identify its author. This is a difficult analysis but one which can offer 
either evidence or objective proof. The main evidence on which 
Whelan based his theory of Leica and Rolleiflex cameras are two 
photographs [Fig. 10 and Fig. 11], a rectangular print and a squared 
one of a couple of seated militia members who laugh looking at each 
other. Richard Whelan credits these two photos based on his theory of 
rectangular prints being by Capa and squared ones by Taro, and he 
justifies the similarity of the two images by the fact that they used to 
work together, hand in hand. Capa took the picture from the left side 
and from a low-angle perspective while Taro took it from the right and 
from a waist-high perspective and that is the reason why we can see 
some trees in the background on the squared photo while the 
rectangular print shows only the ground of the park. 
There is no logic behind this approach; it makes no sense for two 
partner photographers to take the same picture. Rather, it would 
indeed be logical to think that Capa and Taro worked each on their 
own and at different locations so as to get different images and offer 
magazines a greater variety of photographs. 
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Fig. 10 - A couple of seated militia members who laugh looking at each other (rectangular)
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Richard Whelan (2007)
Fig. 11 - A couple of seated militia members who laugh looking 
at each other 
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Richard Whelan (2007)
An Analysis of Robert Capa to Identify Gerda 
Taro’s Catalogue 
Faced with this scenario, one where there is no reliable 
information available for further research, we can establish a different 
kind of relationship and carry out a comparative analysis. In this case, 
we will turn to photographs by Robert Capa, especially Falling Soldier, 
on which there is more information available thanks to previous 
research. A series of morphological analyses have dissected the iconic 
structure of this photograph, which is in turn repeated in other 
photos, specifically in many of the negatives found in the Mexican 
Suitcase, so that we can identify a series of reiterative compositional 
elements which define the style of Robert Capa. This information will 
allow the analysis of the cataloguing of the work by Gerda Taro 
identified by Richard Whelan through comparison with Robert Capa 
photographs, which should lead to compelling conclusions.
Falling Soldier should indeed be regarded as Robert Capa’s Rosetta 
stone based on the fact that it features visual elements which are 
repeated in many of his photographs and define his style, and we will 
show here that Richard Whelan mistakenly attributed this status to the 
photograph of the couple of seated militia members [Fig. 10 and Fig. 
11] taken with Leica and Rolleiflex cameras. Research on Falling Soldier 
was carried out in a very rudimentary way due to the lack of original 
materials such as negatives and positives. All that was available were 
the copies printed on Vu and Life magazines. According to Brian 
Wallis, ICP Associate Director, (2010, p. 14) the negative is a crucial 
reference point,
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But given that that reference point is not available, research was 
based on the images on Vu and Life magazines [Fig. 12 and Fig. 13]. To 
begin with, Vu, where this photograph first appeared, published not 
one but two photos on the same page, both with the same view, same 
framing and same content. A dead militiaman appears on each of 
these photos; he used two different militiamen so it is safe to infer that 
he did not intend to create a sequence, these are two different 
snapshots. The photo caption also refers to two men given that the 
text is in the plural form. 
After this initial observation, and this not being the original 
photograph but a published copy, measuring the photo size was out of 
the question. However, it was possible to estimate the proportionality 
of the sides. The result of dividing width by height is a 1´74 factor i.e. 
this photograph is more rectangular than the proportion in a Leica 
camera negative, which is 1´5. Furthermore, the framing of these two 
photographs is at first sight the same but after careful observation 
some differences can be detected. The framing of the top photograph, 
Falling Soldier, has a low-angle perspective and the sky is bigger than 
that on the second photo, which is resolved from a slight high angle 
perspective.
A more detailed observation was carried out with transparent 
acetate to mark the orographiclines on the first photograph. The 
second photograph was placed on the acetate and the lines were not 
an exact match; there is a difference of 5 tilt degrees to the right on 
the second photo in relation to the first one. The next research stage 
consisted in comparing the first version of Falling Soldier to the second 
version published by Life. This magazine only published the first 
photograph, that is, the second militiaman was forgotten about both in 
magazines and in the research carried out by Richard Whelan.
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Both Whelan and I anticipated that the rumored Mexican 
Suitcase would carry that photograph’s lost negative, or at least 
some sort of clue that would clarify how and why it was taken. 
[...] If the search for the Mexican Suitcase had had the finding 
of Falling Soldier negative as its sole objective, it would have 
been a failure. Unfortunately, the negative was not in the boxes 
we received; the sequence of the images in the boxes started a 
little further ahead in time. 
 Therefore, we have two magazines publishing different versions 
of the same photo. Life published an almost squared print of Falling 
Soldier which kept all the visual information in the first photo and had 
a bigger sky. In the case of this second version, the result of dividing 
width by height is a 1´3 factor i.e. it is a fairly squared composition.
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Fig. 12 - Vu Magazine
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Richard Whelan (2007)
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Photo: Robert Capa
From: Life Magazine, July 12, 1937
Fig. 13 - Life Magazine
From this stage on, ICP’s official version, according to which 
Robert Capa took this photograph with the Leica camera, is called 
into question for the following reason; if we look at the bottom part of 
the two versions of the photograph and observe the details in the left 
and right corners, we can easily spot the same visual elements in both 
photographs, they look the same. Now the question is: can we shift 
from a rectangular shape to an almost squared shape and keep the 
same visual information in the bottom part of the photographs? The 
answer is “no” as changing a rectangle into a virtually squared shape 
always implies sacrificing one of the sides. Conclusion: Falling Soldier 
was not shot with the Leica but with the Rolleiflex camera. 
When this conclusion was published for the first time, the ICP 
rejected it. Their argument was that in those days magazines used to 
retouch photographs, that is, Life magazine had broadened the sky on 
the photograph. But later on, the catalogue for the This is War! Robert 
Capa at Work exhibition by Richard Whelan (2007, p. 84) featured a 
copy of Second Falling Man, the photo which accompanied Falling Soldier 
in Vu, and the factor of this photo is also 1´3, exactly the same as that 
in Life, which shows that this magazine did not retouch Falling Soldier 
but rather that both photos were taken with a 6 x 6 format, factor 1 
camera. A further reference point in support of the Rolleiflex theory is 
the only original Falling Soldier photo in the archives of the Museum of 
Modern Art in New York (MOMA). In the catalogue card its 
measurements are 23,8 x 18,1 cm. i.e. a 1’3 factor. This information 
reconfirms that Capa’s snapshot was taken with this camera and not 
with a Leica. 
 The difference between the original squared format of the 
Rolleiflex camera and the almost squared negatives developed at 
Alliance Photo had to do with the versatility of this format, as stated 
by Frizot, (2009, p. 18): 
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The almost squared format used by Alliance Photo to develop the 
Rolleiflex negatives is also seen in the photo of the group of 
militiamen who pose for the camera raising their rifles (Richard 
Whelan 2007, p. 61). This image also has a 1´3 factor. Also a feature of 
some of Capa’s photographs taken with this camera and seen on Death 
of a Soldier [Fig. 13] is the composition. This photo has a very basic 
structure dividing it between sky and land; the sky covers 2/3 of the 
photo surface and the land covers 1/3. Virtually all the photos taken 
with the Rolleiflex at the Espejo photo shoot: Second Falling Man, which 
accompanies Falling Soldier in the Vu magazine issue; the group of 
militiamen with raised rifles and a series of modern copies including at 
least three squared photographs [Fig. 14-15-16], showing stubble fields 
in Espejo and militiamen running and shooting, all these images follow 
the same pattern of space assigned to sky and earth as Falling Soldier. 
Robert Capa uses this composition pattern only in Rolleiflex photos; 
the Leica negative contact sheet from Espejo shows completely 
different compositions, the subjects are not lost in the landscape but in 
the foreground and nature is reduced to a minimum expression on 
most of the negatives in this contact sheet. 
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The square image produced by the Rolleiflex camera has certain 
advantages for magazines as it can be reframed ad libitum to 
meet the requirements of page layout, whereas the rectangular 
framing of the Leica camera is more difficult to break.
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Fig. 14
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Richard Whelan (2007)
Fig. 15
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Richard Whelan (2007)
The Sloping Landscape
The field research, which on this occasion could be called “in the 
field”, revealed important orographic references. In the catalogue for 
the This is war! Robert Capa at work exhibition by Richard Whelan 
(2007, p. 77), the top and left borders of the photograph of the 
militiamen firing to the horizon feature a wedge-shaped black strip to 
which I did not give any thought at first.
Once I located and photographed this landscape in Espejo I 
understood the purpose of the black strips on Capa’s photograph. 
Their function is to raise the level of the photo on the right side to 
improve the composition given that it is in origin tilted to the right and 
the feeling is that the militia in the picture might be about to fall 
forward. This effect can be seen when we compare Fig. 17 and Fig. 18. 
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Fig. 16
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Richard Whelan (2007)
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Fig. 17
Fig. 18
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Richard Whelan (2007)
Photo: J. M. Susperregui
This landscape can be framed from different levels since now the 
olive trees do not allow a detailed view and the land references 
disappear. In this case the choice was made for the bottom level given 
that the ground is flatter than at higher levels, such as the case of La 
Haza del Reloj, which has a steep slope.
If we compare both photos we see that the skyline is the same 
except for an important difference. In the photograph by Capa the 
skyline on the left is higher than that on the photograph on the right, 
which was taken under normal conditions. In the photo by Capa not 
only the skyline but the whole plain is tilted to the right as a result of a 
manoeuvre at the moment of taking the photograph which consisted 
of tilting the camera to the left (2º) so that the final picture is seen out 
of level to the right. This manoeuvring or “camera movement” by 
Capa is repeated in quite a few of the photographs of his first trip to 
Civil War Spain. In the photo titled Third Falling Man the camera 
movement is the same but with an inclination of 8º as in Falling Soldier.
Once the Espejo landscape was located, because of the changes 
on the ground, where there is no stubble now but ratherolive groves 
which cause the perspective to be lost, finding the site of Falling Soldier 
seemed at first an impossible task. But careful observation reveals some 
of the orographic lines seen on Capa’s photos, especially the left to 
right slant land line on Falling Soldier. Today that same line is formed by 
the ridges of the olive grove growing where the stubble fields used to 
be on Cerro del Cuco, which is where Robert Capa shot Falling Soldier; 
this photo was not taken at La Haza del Reloj site, where uninformed 
researchers have placed it. La Haza del Reloj is a much more sloped 
piece of land and the mountain ridge on Capa’s photo cannot be seen 
from there. 
Figure 19 shows all the orographic elements appearing in Falling 
Soldier, the oblique line from side to side, the trapezoid figure and the 
mountains in the background. The reframing in this image reproduces 
Robert Capa’s composition but from a higher perspective, the only 
one from which it is possible to analyze the whole landscape. Figure 
20, which is the reframing of the previous image, is slanted to the right 
following the oblique line in Capa’s photo. This reference point shows 
that the land slope is 8° overdone.
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Fig. 19
Fig. 20
Photo: J. M. Susperregui
Photo: J. M. Susperregui
Taro and Capa’s negatives in the Mexican Suitcase
The Mexican Suitcase reveals a series of particularities in Robert 
Capa’s photographs whereas Gerda Taro’s negatives are more 
conventional and follow the classic composition rules which guarantee 
balance and harmony in the representation as a whole. Taro’s 
conventionalism makes it difficult to immediately identify her 
negatives, but overall their composition is noteworthy in contrast to 
many of Robert Capa’s negatives. An example of this can be seen in 
the reports she made in Valencia in March of 1937, especially her 
portraits of Dolores Ibarruri, a series of snapshots on which the 
communist leader is seen in the frame together with the interviewer. 
The funeral of General Pavol Lukács is also a good example of her 
restraint as her compositions are in no way shocking. 
However, when we look at Capa’s negatives we frequently find 
unstable compositions due to his breaking of conventional esthetic 
rules. Compositions weighted on the left are quite common in Capa’s 
catalogue; this is seen for instance in the portrait taken near Peñarroya 
[Fig. 21], the portrait of the Minister of Defense [Fig. 22], Indalecio 
Prieto talking to an officer and General Líster reading the paper [Fig. 
23]; in other more open compositions such as the battle of Teruel [Fig. 
24] the composition is also weighted on the left. In the snapshot of the 
battle of the Río Segre [Fig. 25] this instability is even more 
pronounced as he forces this feature to the point where part of the 
character in the foreground is cropped, as if he wanted to spotlight his 
famous dictum, “If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not 
close enough.” When he shoots in open fields, where a photographer 
can move around to adjust distances to suit framing requirements, 
cropping subjects, in his case usually those on the left, has no 
justification whatsoever [Fig. 25 and Fig. 26]. The “amputee stigma” 
has to be seen as an intentional manoeuvre on the part of the 
photographer, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the taking 
of the photograph. Robert Capa kept this photographic peculiarity all 
through to the end of the Civil War, as proved by one of his last 
snapshots [Fig. 26], taken at Le Barcarès concentration camp in 
March, 1939.
Controversies over Gerda Taro’s Reasoned Catalogue

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Controversies over Gerda Taro’s Reasoned Catalogue

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Fig. 21
Fig. 22
Photo: Robert Capa
From: The Mexican Suitcase Vol. 1 (2010)
Photo: Robert Capa
From: The Mexican Suitcase Vol. 1 (2010)
Controversies over Gerda Taro’s Reasoned Catalogue

 Jose Manuel Susperregui
 29
Fig. 23
Fig. 24
Photo: Robert Capa
From: The Mexican Suitcase Vol. 1 (2010)
Photo: Robert Capa
From: The Mexican Suitcase Vol. 1 (2010)
Controversies over Gerda Taro’s Reasoned Catalogue

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Fig. 25
Fig. 26
Photo: Robert Capa
From: The Mexican Suitcase Vol. 1 (2010)
Photo: Robert Capa
From: The Mexican Suitcase Vol. 1 (2010)
Results Of The Appraisal Of Gerda Taro’s Catalogue
If we take into account the peculiarities of Robert Capa’s of style, 
seen in many of his photographs, we note that all these patterns or 
stylistic dictates are present in Falling Soldier [Fig. 13]. To begin with, it 
has been proved that this composition is 8º sloped to the right. 
Furthermore, asymmetry is clearly created by the position of the 
soldier on the left side, which leaves the rest of frame empty; cropping 
can also be observed, part of the butt of the rifle is cut as well as the 
soldier’s left foot. Thus, we can objectively identify the photos in the 
catalogue credited to Gerda Taro and which correspond to her first 
trip to Civil War Spain by summing up the three patterns in Capa’s 
model:
A) Tilted image composition, usually to the right.
B) Asymmetric composition covering mainly the left side of the frame. 
C) Cropping of subjects and objects also on the left side. 
Now, if we analyze the photos in Gerda Taro’s catalogue by Irme 
Schaber and Richard Whelan (2007) following those patterns, we can 
spot coincidences and differences by comparison to Capa’s model. For 
the comparative analysis we have focused on the photographs credited 
to Gerda Taro taken during the first trip, a total of 27 snapshots 
excluding the images published by Vu and Miroir du Monde featured in 
the catalogue. The number on each thumbnail photo corresponds to 
the number assigned in the catalogue and the letters A, B and C mean 
that these patterns can be seen in the photograph. 
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2.
A
B
C
3.
A
C
4.
A
C
5.
A
B
C
6.
A
7.
A
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8.
C
9.
A
10.
A
C
12.
A
C
13.
A
C
11.
A
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15.
C
16.
17.
C
18.
A
19.
A
20.
C
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21. 22.
23.
A
B
C
24.
A
C
26.
A
B
C
25
A
B
C
The results of the analysis of these twenty-seven photographs 
provide the following information: 6 photographs show all three 
features, 9 show two, 9 show only one and the remaining 3 feature 
none of them. “A” is the most repeated pattern and appears 20 times 
(including numbers 25 and 29, which are sloped to the left probably
Controversies over Gerda Taro’s Reasoned Catalogue

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30.
A
C
29.
A
B
C
31.
A
B
C
because they were reverse developed), followed by “C”, which is seen 
18 times; “B” is the least frequent one appearing only in 7 
photographs. Therefore, this catalogue shows a clear tendency to 
sloping, usually to the right side as seen in 74% of the compositions. 
Moreover, 66% of the framings crop subjects or objects and 26% of 
the compositions are dominated by asymmetry weighing on the left 
side of the frame. Only 11% of the photos in the catalogue do not 
reproduce any of Robert Capa’s patterns. However, the most notable 
aspect of these results is the significant presence of Capa’s style in the 
catalogue as a whole, which leads us to credit these photographs to 
Robert Capa.
A final and indisputable argument in support of Richard Whelan 
and Irme Schaber having wrongly credited this set of images to Gerda 
Taro lies in the main evidence they presented, which RichardWhelan 
called the Rosetta stone, to support theContro conclusion that the 
rectangular format corresponded to Robert Capa photos and the 
square shape corresponded to Gerda Taro’s. The squared print of the 
couple of militia members sitting and smiling is also 9º sloped to the 
right; Figure 27 shows how the white lines around the trees clearly 
reveal the composition is sloped to the right following the most 
representative pattern in Robert Capa’s style on his first trip to Civil 
War Spain. Furthermore, the militiaman’s right elbow is cropped and 
there is a slight asymmetry to the left side. Overall, this composition 
features all three distinctive patterns in Robert Capa’s photos and is 
completely in line with his personal style.
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Conclusions
The result of this research on the cataloguing of Gerda Taro’s 
photographs taken on the first trip she made with Capa to Civil War 
Spain unquestionably reveals that the criterion followed by Irme 
Schaber and Richard Whelan to establish a relationship with the 
photographs credited to Gerda Taro is wrong.
 The main evidence in support of this is the initial mistake they 
made when they compared the rectangular print of the couple of 
Controversies over Gerda Taro’s Reasoned Catalogue

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Fig. 25
Photo: Robert Capa
From: Richard Whelan (2007)
militia members sitting and smiling to the squared print of the same 
image and credited these photographs to different authors when in 
fact the squared print features the three distinct patterns in the style of 
Capa in his Spanish Civil War photo reports. Added to this mistake, a 
detailed analysis of the rest of the photographs in the catalogue of 
Gerda’s first trip produces irrefutable results. It is also true that 11% of 
the photos fall outside these criteria but the conventionality of that 
portion of the catalogue should not come as surprise given that Capa’s 
style is somewhat forced and unnatural, that it, the results do not 
justify Capa’s rejection of conventional esthetics, which in the case of 
photojournalism should be more focused on the information content. 
The publication of the photographs credited to Gerda Taro in some 
magazines in the summer of 1936, Vu on August 29, Miroir du Monde 
on September 5, La Revue du Medecin on September 30 and Illustrated 
London News on October 24 among others, is not sufficiently supported 
by evidence given that only in the Miroir du Monde is one photograph 
credited Photo Taro. It is a squared image of a few gunners of no 
informative interest and which might be in fact part of another 
scheme, a plan to earn more money by publishing those photos of 
little informative value and credit them to Taro (Photo, nº 189). The 
photo credited to Taro in the Illustrated London News issue is in fact an 
impossible photograph given that Taro was at a rally and the 
militiamen in this photo were on the opposite side (Fig. 4). Therefore, 
the main conclusion is that Gerda Taro did not make this first trip in 
her capacity as a photojournalist but rather as Robert Capa’s manager 
and if she did use the camera her photographs are nothing but 
trivial. This conclusion calls for a reassessment of Taro’s catalogue 
and the restitution of these photographs to their legitimate author, 
Robert Capa.
Controversies over Gerda Taro’s Reasoned Catalogue

 Jose Manuel Susperregui
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Bibliography
ANÓNIMO, Robert Capa: 124 photos retrouveés, Photo nº 189, junio de 1983.
FONTAINE, François. La guerre d’Espagne un deluge de feu et d’images. 
Paris: BDIC/BERG INTERNATIONAL, 2003.
FRIZOT, Michel, DE VEIGY, Cédrid. Vu. Le magazine photographique 
1928-1940. Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, 2009.
MIRAVITLLES, Jaume. Bienal de Venecia. Fotografía e información de 
guerra. España 1936-1939. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 1977.
SCHABER, Irme. Gerda Taro. Une photographe révolucionaire dans la guerre 
d’Espagne. Monaco: Éditions du Rocher, 2006.
SCHABER, Irme, WHELAN Richard, LUBBEN Kristen. GERDA TARO. 
Göttingen: ICP/STEIDL, 2007.
WALLIS, Brian. The Mexican Suitcase. New York: International Center of 
Photography / STEIDL Vol. 1. 2010.
WHELAN, Richard. This is War! Robert Capa at Work. Göttingen: Steidl, 
2007.
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