'The Mexican Suitcase', a groundbreaking exhibition revealing the most famous group of recovered negatives of the twentieth century, will be on view at the International Center of Photography in New York from the 24th of next month until January the 9th, 2011.

Considered lost since 1939, the so-called Mexican Suitcase is in fact three boxes containing 4,500 negatives documenting the Spanish Civil War by Robert Capa, Chim (David Seymour), and Gerda Taro. 

Offering new images that provide a comprehensive overview of the war, the cache of negatives also includes previously unknown portraits of Ernest Hemingway, Federico Garcia Lorca, and Dolores Ibarruri (known as “La Pasionaria”).

Capa, Chim, and Taro risked their lives to witness history in the making and show it to the world, and the Mexican Suitcase contains some of their most important works.

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.

Equally compelling are the stories of the photographers themselves as revealed through their images: the dashing Capa, the studious Chim, and the intrepid Taro, who died tragically in 1937 during the battle of Brunete.

This is the history of three young people and the ties that bound them - the moving personal and artistic relationship between Capa and Taro, and the professional bond that later led Capa and Chim to create Magnum Photos.

The exhibition will present most of these negatives as modern contact sheets. Because they were lost so long ago, and as no contact sheets were made, these films show for the first time the order in which the images were conceived and shot, and in some cases the full extent of the photographers’ work on the story. Images that have become iconic over the years can now be read in their original sequence. In addition, all of the films reveal unedited frames, either unpublished or never printed.

The exhibition will also include various examples of the original 1930s periodicals in which the work first appeared. These publications - Regards, Vu, Life, Schweizer Illustrierte Zeitung, Volks-Illustrierte - provide an enlightening historical context for the evolving coverage of the war and the growing reliance on the photo essay.

The Mexican Suitcase will contain both vintage prints from the ICP collection and contemporary prints, along with the photographers’ own rarely seen contact notebooks.

Image © Estate of Cornell Capa / ICP/ Magnum International Center of Photography.