David Seymour

photographer

David Seymour (born Dawid Szymin; 1911–1956), known professionally as 'Chim', was a Polish-born photojournalist and one of the co-founders of Magnum Photos. He studied graphic arts in Leipzig before moving to Paris to study at the Sorbonne, where he began his photography career in 1933. Chim became renowned for his humanistic approach to documentary photography, notably capturing images of the Spanish Civil War and later documenting the plight of children across Europe in the aftermath of World War II. His work was characterized by a deep empathy for subjects suffering from war-related trauma. He served as president of Magnum Photos following the death of Robert Capa until his own death in 1956, when he was killed by machine-gun fire while on assignment in Egypt.[1,2,3,4,6]

Themes

  • humanism
  • war photography
  • refugee crisis
  • post-war reconstruction

Works by David Seymour

  • Children of Europe 1949 · UNESCO · book · English Commissioned by UNICEF to document the living conditions of children across a devastated postwar Europe.

Exhibitions

  • 2017 Chim's Children of Europe The Image Centre, Toronto solo

References

  1. David Seymour (photographer). Wikipedia link
  2. David Seymour (Chim). Culture.pl link
  3. Chim (David Seymour). ICP link
  4. David Seymour. AACI link
  5. David Seymour. Britannica link
  6. Chim's Children of Europe (1949). Magnum Photos. 2017 link