Magnum Distributions, 1947–1960: Photographers’ Emancipation and Concessions

Abstract

Magnum Photos is a legendary photographers’ cooperative, which produced iconic pictures and helped define and promote the profession of photojournalist. This paper interrogates the agency’s contribution to the history of post-war photojournalism during its first years (1947–1960), focusing on “distributions,” sets of pictures with accompanying texts and captions that were circulated internationally to magazines and partnering agencies. Distributions renewed the tradition of the photo-essay and inspired generations of Magnum photographers. In Magnum’s myth, they have been presented as a revolutionary invention that enabled photographers to secure complete control over their work, embodying the cooperative’s ideals of freedom and independence. This paper argues that distributions played indeed such a role, but indirectly, as a process rather than a result: they were in fact a stepping stone that helped Magnum members to support their personal work. This study demonstrates how, during the agency’s first years, distributions represented a compromise between the photographers’ visions and the needs of the market. Distributions thus form one specific instance of the famous nexus between words and pictures, and art and journalism.