By Alexia Davidescu

Nadya Bair, a historian of photography, the press and mass visual culture, gave a talk on the Magnum Photos agency at the Image Arts building on Nov. 5. She touched on some of the first exhibitions and projects of the agency in the 1950s including Magnum’s First, a collection of once-lost photographs and Chim’s Children of Europe—both of which are currently being hosted at the Image Centre.

In the soft light of the lecture hall turned auditorium, guests scurried to their seats and patiently waited for Bair to take to the podium and teach the audience the history of this legendary company.

Bair first became interested in the Magnum brand when completing her PhD at the University of Southern California.

In an interview with The Eyeopener Bair said, “I was really interested in how photojournalists were working in the immediate aftermath of [the Second World War] and I learned about a project that Robert Capa did in the Soviet Union when he traveled there in 1947 and then that led me to discover what Magnum was and to start probing.”

Founded by a collective of photographers from across the globe in 1947, the Magnum agency upheld their goal of selling as many photographs to as many markets as possible.

Though many companies at the time had the same goal in mind, Magnum had two policies that set the agency apart.

“The first thing was this idea of collective and financial and editorial responsibility…The second really important business policy that Magnum inaugurated was that its photographers always kept their own films,” said Bair. This allowed the photographers to maximize their profits and the number of markets they could reach.

This is the first time Magnum’s First is being displayed in North America. The exhibit includes 83 original prints by eight of the agency’s first members, including Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Inge Morath and Ernst Haas.

The pictures included in the collection are not necessarily representative of the photographers’ best works but rather what the photojournalist market was looking for at the time. “Think about it as this time capsule that helps us understand not the Magnum brand but Magnum and the market conditions that it was navigating in 1955,” said Bair.

The historian explained that the agency was formed after the Second World War—a time where photojournalism took hold to display the effects of the war and visually represented the struggles of life. One of the most famous examples of this is David ‘Chim’ Seymour’s, Children of Europe photoseries. Chim, a Polish photojournalist, documented the life of children after the war, through their lens, raising awareness of postwar displacement.

Rebekah Nearing, an attendee at the talk, first learned about the event from her photography instructor. “We were taking a darkroom course…and our instructor was very passionate about doing your research when you’re doing film developing…So we knew we had to come.”

Alison Yeung, another attendee, found Bair’s talk intriguing and explained that it’s important for photographer, like herself, to learn how they can channel Magnum’s spirit into today’s world.

Though the landscape of photojournalism today has drastically changed, Magnum’s impact on the industry cannot be overlooked. Magnum’s First and Chim’s Children of Europe will be on display in the Image Centre until Dec. 13 and return in 2026 on Jan. 14 until April 4.