ICP Founder Cornell Capa Dead at 90

NEW YORK—Cornell Capa, the photographer and editor who founded New York's International Center of Photography, died here today at the age of 90.

Born Kornel Friedman in 1918 in Budapest, Capa got started in the photo industry by developing images shot by his brother, the famed war photographer Robert Capa (born Andre Friedman), in Paris. In 1937 he moved to New York, where he found a foothold in the darkrooms of the Pix photo agency (which represented his brother) and Life magazine, where he became a staff photographer in 1946, shooting photo essays mostly around the United States and England. In 1954, after Robert was killed in Indochina, Capa left Life for Magnum Photos agency.

Capa's approach to his work, which focused on subject matter ranging from presidential campaigns to the Bolshoi Ballet to the everyday lives of developmentally disabled children and young adults, is best summed up in the term "concerned photographer," which he coined to describe his and his brother's philosophy.

“It took me some time to realize that the camera is a mere tool, capable of many uses,” he wrote in 1963. “At last I understood that, for me, its role, its power, and its duty are to comment, describe, provoke discussion, awaken conscience, evoke sympathy, spotlight human misery and joy which otherwise would pass unseen, un-understood, and unnoticed."

In 1966, to preserve the work of important photojournalists such as his brother, he created the International Fund for Concerned Photography, which supported exhibitions, workshops, books, and other projects, including a collection of important photojournalism, and would later grow into the International Center of Photography, opened officially as a museum and school in 1974.

“Remarkably, when ICP was formed, the position of photography as a visual art was a far cry from the present,” said current ICP director Willis E. Hartshorn. “There were only a small handful of commercial galleries devoted exclusively to photography, and few American museums had a photography department, much less a photography collection. But Cornell’s ICP helped change it all.”