Source
Robert Capa Killed by Mine in Indo-China
Citation
“Robert Capa Killed by Mine in Indo-China.” The New York Times, May 26, 1954, p. 1. Front-page death notice; follow-up appreciation in the same week.
Relevance
Contemporaneous news-of-record report on the death of Robert Capa (1913–1954), Magnum co-founder, whose print appears at plate #26 of The Family of Man (Marriage). Source for the death date (May 25, 1954, Thai-Binh, Indochina / Vietnam).
Key excerpts / pages
- Death: May 25, 1954, near Thai-Binh, on assignment for LIFE magazine covering the French-Indochina War; killed by a land mine.
- Identifies Capa as Hungarian-born (“Andre Friedmann,” age 40), Magnum co-founder (with Cartier-Bresson, Rodger, Seymour), and a naturalized US citizen.
Notes
- The MoMA Master Checklist prints Capa’s nationality as “American” (per US naturalization); this obituary acknowledges the Hungarian birth. The scholarly convention “Hungarian-American” (used by ICP, Magnum Photos, and the standard biographies by Richard Whelan) is recorded in
notesonpher-robert-capa. - Companion reference: the International Center of Photography (ICP), founded in 1974 by his brother Cornell Capa in part to preserve Robert Capa’s archive, holds the Robert Capa Archive.
- Perspective: journalistic / biographical.
- Re-verification 2026-04-24 (issue #9): NYT archive URL not directly fetchable (403, paywall); Wayback attempt via WebFetch blocked. Birth name (André Friedmann), Budapest birth, 1913-1954 dates, death cause (“stepped on a landmine” in Indochina on LIFE assignment), American nationality (“b. Hungary”), and Magnum co-founder role with Cartier-Bresson, Chim (David Seymour), and George Rodger independently corroborated by the ICP Robert Capa Archive constituent page (fetched 2026-04-24). Exact death date (1954-05-25) and locality (Thai-Binh) NOT re-confirmed in this round — held on the pre-existing NYT citation only; Whelan 1985 biography was not consulted this round. Flagged
verified: falsepending a Tier-1/2 primary source.