The Spanish Civil War

Seymour became a photojournalist at a time when communist-fascist rivalry was reaching a peak in Europe. In France, leftist political parties formed the Front Populaire in response to the rise of Nazism in Germany and to campaign against right wing parties for control of the French Chamber of Deputies in the 1936 elections. In 1934, Seymour began photographing for Regards, a magazine sympathetic to the Front Populaire. By Spring 1936 he was splitting his time between covering the French elections and documenting the civil war in Spain, where General Francisco Franco was leading important elements of the military and its allies in an attempt to overthrow the duly elected leftist coalition government. Seymour was among the first to depict fast moving, front-line, battle action with a camera, but he had little taste for the battleground. He soon relinquished that coverage to his friend and colleague Robert Capa, who became famous as a war photographer. Seymour preferred to photograph behind the lines, documenting war’s impact on the civilian population. When Franco’s Nationalist forces finally prevailed over the Republican government in 1939, Seymour accompanied refugees bound for Mexico and photographed them aboard the ship and in their new country. By September of that year he made his way to New York City. He spent the initial months of World War II operating a photo finishing service.

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