Robert Capa is one of the most remarkable photojournalists of all time. Born Endre Friedmann in Budapest and a naturalized American citizen in 1946, he cemented his reputation with his photographs of the Spanish Civil War, where he was present on all fronts. As a reporter, throughout his career he captured images of the brutality of the conflict, forever changing the perception and standards of war photography.

Although he is known almost exclusively as a master of black and white, he began working regularly with color film in 1941 and, later, in his postwar photographs for magazines such as Holiday (USA), Ladies' Home Journal (USA), Illustrated (UK) and Epoca (Italy). These images brought the lives of ordinary and extraordinary people from all over the world closer to European and American readers, and marked a turning point from the war reportage that dominated Capa's early career. His technical virtuosity and his ability to capture human emotion allowed him to move freely between black and white and color, and to use color to complement and enliven his scenes on paper.

Capa's earliest color photographs depict American and British troops during World War II, at rest or during leisure time. However, these color war images were rarely published. In some cases, color development took too long and didn't fit with the speed required by magazines. Furthermore, this was an era in which black and white was the preferred format for war photography and for more serious artists. One of Capa's strengths in this context was his ability to find niches of success by linking color to the staging of leisure: Colored layer It also shows, from photographs of ski resorts in Switzerland or the Alps, to spectators on the slopes of Longchamp, cultural personalities, models or simply people in cafes, and thus adds to his work nuances of luminosity and humor, which black and white usually avoids.

Some of the photographs presented in this exhibition were, at the time, published in magazines, but had not been printed or exhibited until now in Spain. Colored layer It includes more than 150 color snapshots and tearsheets from publications, along with some personal documents. Curated by Cynthia Young (Curator at the International Center of Photography, ICP), the exhibition presents an exceptional aspect of the photographer and correspondent's career: how he embraced color photography and masterfully integrated it into his work as a photojournalist in the mid-20th century.

The CBA will host, as part of its program of On Mondays, at CírculoA series of activities linked to the exhibition. The first of these, the November 14thIt will be a conference on war reporting led by Emilio Morenatti (expert photographer in the field).

main image: Robert Capa, [Spectators at the Longchamp Racecourse, Paris], ca. 1952. © Robert Capa/International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos