It all started in an elevator.
It was the summer of 2003, in the former building of the International Center of Photography, a beautiful space on the corner of 94th street and 5th Avenue on New York’s “Museum Mile.” I had just finished teaching a class on photo books.
It was in the elevator that I met Richard Whelan, Robert Capa’s biographer. We had run into each other a few times but that was our first real conversation, between the first and second floors. I immediately liked Richard. With his grey hair and glasses, his clear and piercing eyes, his old tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, he looked like a provincial professor from the 1950s.
A few days later, I sent him my biography, George Rodger: An Adventure in Photography, because a few of the chapters were about Rodger’s first encounter with Capa in Vomero, Italy, and their conversations during which the idea of the Magnum agency took shape.
Richard called me right away. He loved the book and recognized our shared passion for the history of photography.
We met at his favorite café on the Upper West Side, French Toast. It would become a ritual to meet there. He always ordered the same thing: a black Tazo tea, “Awake.”
Richard was my intercessor. He told me about Chim and his nephew, Ben Shneiderman. Ben lived in Washington and was looking for someone to write a biography about his uncle. Shortly after, I met Ben. It was the beginning of my adventure with Chim. Richard and I met regularly and spoke about our lives and research.
I didn’t know that it would take eleven years for this “biography in images” of Chim to come out.
I didn’t know much about Chim. I only knew that Capa had said of him, “He’s the good photographer.” When I interviewed Henri Cartier-Bresson about George Rodger, he immediately started talking about Chim. “Capa was my buddy, but Chim was my friend,” he said. “Without him, Magnum wouldn’t exist. He was the one who wrote the statutes.”
Chim was a quiet man. His photographs, like Rodger’s, were eclipsed by Cartier-Bresson’s and Capa’s. The more time I spent in his archives, the more I realized how great of a photographer he was.
I’ve always thought that the job of a historian is to explore the shadows, to shed light on forgotten figures instead of singing the praises of stars.
Read the full article on the French version of l’Œil.
BOOK
David Seymour – Vie de Chim
by Carole Naggar
Editions Contrejour
16,5 x 24 cm
224 pages
ISBN 979-10-90294-11-0
25 €
