One of the great war photographers, the photojournalist Robert Capa (1913-1954), born in Hungary, but a naturalized U.S. citizen, photographed the tumultuous 1930s and the wars that followed. After World War II he helped found Magnum Photos, an international photographic agency.

In a sense Robert Capa invented himself. The son of middle class Jewish parents, he was born Endre Friedmann in Budapest in what was then Austro-Hungary. He grew up under the dictatorship of Regent Nicholas Horthy but accepted the ideas of the artist Lajos Kassák, who spearheaded the avant garde movement in Hungary. Kassák's anti-authoritarian, anti-fascist, pro-labor, egalitarian, and pacifist beliefs influenced Capa the rest of his life. At age 18 Capa was arrested by the secret police for his political activities. He was released through the intervention of his father but was banished from Hungary.

Moving to Berlin in 1931, he worked as...