Passing Thoughts, Paris, May 31, 2008 /

Dear Family & Friends

I have long tried to avoid using euphemisms for the rites of passage, but I must report what most of you know, that Cornell Capa passed away last Friday, attended by one of the three wonderful women who have nursed him around the clock through recent years. I last saw Cornell on April 19, at his regular Saturday lunch with friends. His last words to me were spoken with his eyes.

Thus we conclude a chapter in the history of photography that began 54 years ago. It was on May 25, 1954 that I got the news that Robert Capa had stepped on a land mine and died instantly, covering the French war in Indo China. That morning I had received the news of the death of Magnum’s great Swiss photographer Werner Bischof, in a road accident in Peru. I was then their editor, in Magnum. It was too much for one day.

The next morning I met with Bob’s mother Julia, his brother Cornell and Cornell’s wife Edie. What to do? The French had already held a military ceremony in Hanoi. Should Bob be buried with his great love Gerda Taro at Pere Lachaise in Paris? No, that was too long ago. As one who had distinguished himself in nine wars, albeit without firing a shot, should he be buried as a hero in Arlington National Cemetery? No, he was a man who sought peace, not war. Should he be subjected to the usual service for a non-religious Jew at a funeral home? No, that was too commonplace.

I happened to be a convinced Quaker, a member of the Friends Meeting in Purchase, New York, near my home in Armonk. I had recently attended a Quaker funeral, a meeting of friends to honor the departed one. Nobody presides; anyone may speak.

I told the Capas about it. The idea appealed to them. The following Sunday afternoon such a meeting was held in the old Purchase meeting house. Dozens of people spoke, telegrams were read. Cornell, donning a prayer shawl, recited kaddish. Julia wailed her grief.

A few days later Capa arrived, in a huge French military coffin, airfreighted from Hanoi. The cemetery of Purchase Meeting was crowded. The Quakers at Amawalk, twenty miles to the north, found a place for him in their section of the town cemetery. We buried him on the hillside, with the Capa family, a few friends and a young photographer named Dirk Halstead, to whom Capa was a hero, in attendance.

On Wednesday, May 28, we shall bury Cornell in Amawalk, beside his brother Bob, their mother Julia and Cornell’s wife Edie. Bob’s biographer Richard Whelan also lies nearby. The burial will be followed by a gathering in the Amawalk Meeting House. I shall be there, of course.

Cornell has been the subject of many published tributes in the past few days, recalling his birth in Budapest, his emigration to Paris and then New York, his superb work as a Life and Magnum photographer, his establishment of the Fund for Concerned Photography to honor his brother and other like-minded photographers, and finally for the founding of the International Center of Photography, his lasting memorial. Only history will tell which of the Capa brothers will be the more celebrated-Bob, for bringing the world’s attention to the tragedies of the 20th century; Cornell for founding a world-renowned institution of photography.

Visuals / Essays / John Morris