Magnum's photographers

Orgosolo 1962. Henri Cartier-Bresson Photos

“Being there, being there because one wanted to be there” (Marc Riboud). “A photojournalist is nothing if he does not own his own negatives” (Robert Capa). With these premises, Robert Capa, David Seymour (Chim), Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, and William and Rita Vandivert founded Magnum Photos in Paris in May 1947. Independence in choosing assignments and safeguarding ownership of the images were the theoretical and operational foundations on which Magnum photographers documented the most significant events of the 20th century and presented to the world otherwise unknown realities through the pages of leading magazines, including Life, Paris Match, and Epoca.

After the Second World War, the renewed attention to studies of folklore and ethnography, as well as the echo of phenomena such as banditry, drew scholars and reporters from around the world to Sardinia, including correspondents from the Paris-based agency. In 1950 Werner Bischof documented, in thirteen images for the weekly magazine Epoca, the harshness and backwardness of working conditions in the Campidano area of Cagliari and in the Iglesiente. In 1954, David Seymour needed only a few but effective shots to convey the deep devotion of Sardinians to the martyr Efisio. The following year, Kryn Taconis produced forty colour slides between the port and markets of Cagliari, the procession of Saint Efisio toward Pula, the streets of Orgosolo, and several towns in the Sassarese area. Henri Cartier-Bresson, the undisputed master of the image à la sauvette, came to the island on assignment for Vogue in the summer of 1962 and took a number of photographs between Cagliari and Barbagia that were later exhibited in some of the world’s most important galleries and museums. Bruno Barbey’s first Sardinian reportage dates to 1964, and in the following years other Magnum photographers worked on the island: Ferdinando Scianna (1969), Joseph Koudelka (1985), Harry Gruyaert, Gueorgui Pinkhassov, and Alex Webb (1998).

Bibliography
I grandi reporter della Magnum in Sardegna. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2017.

Update

4/9/2026 - 08:50