David Seymour

photographer

Polish^[1,2] b. 20 November 1911, Warsaw, Poland^[1,2,3,5] d. 10 November 1956, El Quantara, Suez (Egypt)^[1,2,4] active 1933–1956

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]

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