He picked up his camera the way a doctor takes his stethoscope out of his bag, a friend of the photographer once said. David Seymour had a knack for setting his subjects at ease.
As part of an ongoing series on conflict photographers this gallery features the work of David Seymour, a co-founder of photography co-operative Magnum. Working under the name Chim, this photojournalist documented the fringes of war, where he found haunted children and broken people struggling to rebuild.
Read 'Capturing an emotion with empathy' on one of David Seymour's most celebrated photographs.
Tereszka, a child in a residence for disturbed children. When asked to draw a picture of “home”, she scribbled these tangled lines on the blackboard. Warsaw, Poland., 1948. From CHIM’s UNICEF reportage “Children of Europe”. (David Seymour (CHIM)/Magnum)
Children take refuge in underground shelters on the Island of Minorca, Spain to escape the bombings in 1938. (David Seymour (CHIM)/Magnum)
Battle of the Ebro river (July 25th to August 3rd, 1938), Spanish Civil War. ( ©David Seymour / Magnum Photos)
Wounded in the Egyptian General Hospital, in Port Said. 1956. (David Seymour (CHIM)/Magnum)
Child and nun at Villa Savoia, a home for crippled children formerly organized by King Umberto and run by Catholic nuns. It had nearly 100 inmates, maimed by war or accidents from playing with surplus ammunition. Rome, Italy, 1948. From CHIM’s UNICEF reportage “Children of Europe”. (David Seymour (CHIM)/Magnum)
Art critic Bernhardt Berenson looking at a marble sculpture of Pauline Borghese by Antonio Canova. Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy, 1955. (©David Seymour / Magnum Photos)
A girl, raped during the war, in the Albergo dei Poveri reformatory. Female inmates were taught embroidery by Catholic nuns. Naples, Italy, 1948. From CHIM’s UNICEF reportage “Children of Europe”, 1948. (David Seymour (CHIM)/Magnum)
Egyptians in the wreckage of Port Said after the Franco British air attack in1956. (David Seymour (CHIM)/Magnum)
Schoolchildren leaving their secondary school, which survived, on the edge of the completely demolished Jewish Ghetto. The church still standing in the background is St Augustine church on Nowolipki, the very street where CHIM used to live and where his father worked at “Central” publishing house. Warsaw, Poland, 1948. From CHIM’s UNICEF reportage “Children of Europe”. (David Seymour (CHIM)/Magnum)