Magnum's photographers

Orgosolo 1962. Henri Cartier-Bresson Photos

“To be in place, to be there because you wanted to” (Marc Riboud). “A photojournalist is nothing if they don't have their negatives” (Robert Capa). With these assumptions, Robert Capa, David Seymour (Chim), Henri Cartier Bresson, George Rodger, William and Rita Vandivert founded Magnum Photos in Paris in May 1947.
Independence in working choices and safeguarding the ownership of images were therefore the theoretical and operational basis according to which Magnum reporters documented the most salient events of the 20th century and presented otherwise unknown realities to the world, through the pages of major periodicals, including 'Life', 'Paris Match', 'Epoca'.
After World War II, the revaluation of studies on folklore and ethnography but also the echo of phenomena such as banditry drew scholars and reporters from all over the world to Sardinia, not least the envoys of the Parisian agency.
In 1950, Werner Bischof in thirteen images documented for the weekly magazine “Epoca” the harshness and backwardness of working conditions in the Cagliari countryside and in the Iglesiente.
For David Seymour, in 1954, a few but effective shots are enough to tell the Sardinian deep devotion to the martyr Efisio.
The following year, Kryn Taconis created forty diacolors between the port and the markets of Cagliari, the Sant'Efisio procession to Pula, the streets of Orgosolo and some towns in the Sassari area.
Henri Cartier Bresson, the undisputed master of the “image à la sauvette”, arrived on the island on behalf of “Vogue” in the summer of 1962 and between Cagliari and Barbagia he took some shots that will be exhibited in the most important galleries and museums in the world.

Bruno Barbey's first Sardinian report dates back to 1964 and, in the following years, other Magnum reporters will alternate on the island: Ferdinando Scianna (1969), Joseph Koudelka (1985), Harry Gruyaert, Gueorgui Pinkhassov and Alex Webb (1998).