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.