Laporan Wartawan TribunJakarta.com, Ananda Bayu Sidarta
TRIBUNJAKARTA.COM - Untuk menghormati ulang tahun ke-108 Gerda Taro, Google mengenang fotografer wanita masa perang ini dengan Google Doodle.
Taro, fotografer wanita pertama yang tewas dalam suatu aksi, lahir di Stuttgart, Jerman pada tahun 1910, sebelum pindah ke Prancis pada tahun 1933, tak lama setelah Adolf Hitler terpilih sebagai kanselir.
Di Paris, Taro, yang dikenal sebagai "rubah merah kecil" karena rambut jahe dan perawakannya yang kecil, bertemu dengan sesama pengungsi, Andre Friedmann, lalu ia berteman dan diajarkan dasar-dasar fotografi.
Selama waktu itulah mereka memutuskan untuk mencoret nama-nama mereka datang ke Paris dan menemukan identitas baru.
Mr Friedmann menjadi Robert Capa dan Gerta Pohorylle berubah menjadi Gerda Taro.
Bekerja bersama, sebagai teman dan kekasih, pasangan ini meliput Perang Saudara Spanyol di Barcelona sebagai sebuah tim ketika terjadi pada tahun 1936, menghasilkan foto-foto hitam-putih para pejuang perlawanan untuk surat kabar Ce Soir saat itu.
Pekerjaan Mr Capa selama perang membuatnya menjadi salah satu fotografer perang paling terkenal sepanjang masa, sementara Taro juga membuat nama untuk dirinya sendiri.
Google is paying tribute to pioneering photojournalist Gerda Taro with its Google Doodle on Wednesday.
The Doodle comes on what would have been Taro’s 108th birthday — but the trail-blazing war photographer lost her life at just 26 years old, while covering the Spanish Civil War in 1937. Nonetheless, Taro managed to accomplish quite a bit in her short career.
Taro — born Gerda Pohorylle in Stuttgart, Germany — left Germany for Paris in 1933, after Adolf Hitler become chancellor. In Paris, Taro met and fell in love with photographer Robert Capa, who taught her the basics of the craft, according to the International Center of Photography (ICP). They began covering the Spanish Civil War as a team starting in 1936, the BBC reports, capturing images of troops, conflict and Spanish refugees and sending them back to French newspapers.
Eventually, Taro began venturing out alone on photographic missions — including the one in 1937 that led to her death, after she was inadvertently crushed a Loyalist tank, according to ICP.
A decade ago, an exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, featuring many never-before-seen images taken by Taro and Capa, gave her work new life. Although Taro’s work has been overshadowed by Capa’s, and her legacy remains largely unknown, she is considered one of the world’s first frontline female war photographers, and the first to die in action.
Gerda Taro would have been 118 today (Picture: Getty)
As if you didn’t know already, today would have been Gerda Taro’s 118th birthday and Google are celebrating it with a Doodle.
The German photographer was a pioneer for women in her field, becoming the first female photojournalist to cover war on the front lines, and subsequently die doing so.
Her tragic death came during the Spanish Civil War, but the circumstances of it have been disputed over the years.
Here is all you need to know about Taro, her partner and colleague Robert Capa and the controversy surrounding her demise.
Portrait of German photographer Gerda Taro (born Gerta Pohorylle, 1910 – 1937) as she works at a typewriter on a desk, Paris, France, 1936. (Photo by Fred Stein Archive/Getty Images)
Toro’s real name was Gerta Pohorylle, born in 1910 in Stuttgart into a Jewish family.
With the rise of the Nazi Party, her family were forced out of Germany and separated as they left with Gerta moving to Paris in 1934 and not seeing her family again.
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It was in Paris that she began her career as a photojournalist, alongside Endre Friedmann, a man who she met in the French capital in 1935.
Gerda Toro’s Google Doodle (Picture: Google)
Pohorylle and Friedmann began to publish works under the fictional American pseudonym of Robert Capa, a name he would take on as his own, whilst Gerta changed hers to Gerda Taro in homage to Japanese artist Taro Okamoto and Greta Garbo.
The pair began their work in war photography in 1936 when they travelled to Barcelona to cover the Spanish Civil War, both producing photographs under the name Robert Capa.
She not only photographed the violence of the time, but passionately campaigned against fascism that was rife across Europe.
Gerda Taro (1910 – 1937) (left) and Robert Capa (1913 – 1954), 1936. (Picture: Getty Images)
Taro was covering the Battle of Brunete, near Madrid, in 1937 when tragedy struck and a car she was travelling in was hit by a tank.
She died the next day due to her wounds at the age of just 26.
It appeared this was a tragic accident, but fellow journalist Robin Stummer claimed she had been the victim of a planned attack by Russian forces.
A visitor attends the exhibition “the Mexican suitcase” in July 4, 2011 (Picture: Getty Images)
Stummer believed that Stalinists were trying to purge communists and socialists in Spain that were not in line with feelings in Moscow.
There was little evidence for this theory and it did not allign with eye-witness accounts, but it remains a question mark over her untimely demise.
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Taro’s work has been popularised recently with the first major American exhibition of her work opening in 2007, documentary The Mexican Suitcase being released in 2011 based on Taro and Capo and even alt-J releasing the song Taro about her life.
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