The Mexican Suitcase Receives German Photobook Prize 2011 Gold Award

The Mexican Suitcase: The Rediscovered Spanish Civil War Negatives of Capa, Chim, and Taro, published by ICP/Steidl, has received the Gold Award at the German Photobook Prize 2011. Each year, the Deutscher Fotobuchpreis presents awards selected by a distinguished jury, with the purpose of honoring exemplary projects in the field of visual book publishing originating in Germany.

The Mexican Suitcase, a two-volume catalogue published in conjunction with a major exhibition at the International Center of Photography on view through May 8, 2011, features essays by Paul Preston, Simon Dell, David Balsells i Solé, Michel Lefebvre, Bernard Lebrun, Brian Wallis, Cynthia Young, and Kristen Lubben, as well as a complete reproduction of the negatives in the Suitcase.

Lost since 1939, the Mexican Suitcase contains nearly 4,500 negatives documenting the Spanish Civil War by Robert Capa, Chim (David Seymour), and Gerda Taro. These films had traveled from Paris via the south of France to Mexico City, where, almost seventy years later, they were recovered and now reside in the collection of the International Center of Photography.

This material not only provides a uniquely rich and panoramic view of the Spanish Civil War, a conflict that changed the course of European history, but also demonstrates how the work of these legendary photographers laid the foundation for modern war photography. Published throughout the international press, their innovative and passionate coverage of the war was both engaged and partisan. While overtly supporting the antifascist Republican cause, their dramatic photographs vividly recorded battle sequences as well as the harrowing effects of war on civilians.