New ways of making memory. The Asturian images of David Seymour ‘Chim’ during the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 20th century, periods of war were a focus of attention for photographic incursions in the press. Since then, the study of these images depends on the critical analysis of the supposed photographic objectivity, the political-social interests of each shot, the close relationship between the event to be covered and the photographer, etc. In this sense, the first non-international conflict that aroused great interest for foreign newspapers and photojournalists was the Spanish Civil War. From here, the following article explores the graphic reports made by the Polish photographer David Seymour, alias ‘Chim’ during his time in the Asturian region in the first months of 1937. The work is part, in turn, of the valuable set visual which we call “Suitcase” or “Mexican Suitcase”, along with the negatives of André Friedmann (Robert Capa) and Gerta Pohorylle (Gerda Taro). Specifically, we focus on the images of the battle of Oviedo, currently semi-unpublished as they do not have an in-depth analysis compared to those dedicated to other locations, on which studies and museum exhibitions have been carried out. His study is based on a methodology based on the spatio-temporal identification of the shot, from which, situate the photographer and begin the photographic commentary in light of the immediate historical context.