Magnum

International photographic agency, founded with offices in New York and Paris in April 1947 by the photographers Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Chim, George Rodger (b 1908) and William Vandivert (1912-c. 1992). In the period after World War II, when illustrated news magazines flourished, Magnum became the most famous of picture agencies. This was initally due to the reputation of its founder-members, who had photographed the Spanish Civil War (1936-9) and World War II (three of them as correspondents for Life magazine). Its celebrity was sustained by the success of its work, the quality of the photographers it continued to attract and by the deaths while on assignment of Capa (the driving force behind Magnum), Chim and Werner Bischof, the first new member to be admitted.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Founded at meetings in Paris and New York in the spring of 1947, it was the first self-governing, cooperative photographic agency, whose members also owned the copyright to their work. Founding members were Robert Capa, who had nourished the idea since the mid-1930s, George Rodger, David ‘Chim’ Seymour, the Life photographer Bill Vandivert, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. They grandly divided up the globe, with Seymour covering Europe, Cartier-Bresson India and the Far East, Rodger Africa and the Middle East, and Vandivert the USA; Capa would rove freely. Maria Eisner (1909-91), formerly of the Alliance Photo agency, and Vandivert's wife Rita would run the business side. The agency would be based in Paris, with offices in London and New York (later also Tokyo).

Founded when magazine journalism was still booming, Magnum survived several early crises, including the deaths of Capa and another early member, Werner Bischof, in 1954, and Seymour in 1956, to become a prestigious elite organization. It is democratically organized, with a tiered system of nominees, associates, and full members (limited to 36) voted in at a geographically rotating AGM. Full members have included Eve Arnold, Ian Berry, Susan Meiselas, Inge Morath, James Nachtwey, Martin Parr, Gilles Peress, Raghu Rai, and Sebastião Salgado. They have preserved the principle of choosing their own assignments and keeping control of their own work. The agency's picture archive has become a major media and scholarly resource.

— Amanda Hopkinson

Bibliography

• Morris, J., Get the Picture (1998).
• Miller, R., Magnum: Fifty Years at the Front Line of History (1998)