July 7 – September 15, 2024
Chim: Between Devastation and Resurrection presents the work of distinguished photojournalist Dawid Szymin (Chim”) born in Warsaw in 1911. Chim published under the name David Seymour. His keen observations of 20th century European politics, social life, and culture, documented the beginnings of the antifascist struggle to the rebuilding of countries ravaged by the war. With Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and George Rodger in 1947, he founded the Magnum photo agency. Chim was drawn to the struggle of workers’ rights, countries in transition, and postwar resistance and survival.
The exhibition includes over 50 photographs, many rarely seen, focusing on the post-war reconstruction of Europe, European elections, the effect of the war on children, and the birth of the State of Israel.
Chim: Between Devastation and Resurrection is on loan from the Illinois Holocaust Museum. The original exhibition was excerpted from We Went Back: Photographs from Europe 1933-1956 by Chim, organized by the International Center of Photography and made possible by the John and Anna Maria Phillips Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts. OJMCHE gratefully acknowledges the Arnold and Augusta Newman Fund for Photography for supporting the exhibition.