Quote: "If you're too close to events, you lose perspective. It is not easy to be fair with the facts and keep your own convictions out of the picture. It is almost impossible to be both a participant in the events and their observer, witness, interpreter."

Micha Bar-Am joined Magnum Photos as a Correspondent in 1968.

Israeli, b. Germany 1930

Micha Bar-Am, who has been a Magnum Correspondent since 1968, was born in Berlin and moved with his family to Israel - then Palestine - in 1936.

Growing up in Haifa, Bar-Am lived on a kibbutz and began to document kibbutz life with borrowed cameras. Active in the pre-state underground, Bar-Am was drafted in 1948 when the jewish-arab conflict turned into an all-out war. After his military service, he had several jobs before he began to photograph seriously, covering the 1956 Sinai War.

After the publication of his first book, Across Sinai, Bar-Am was asked to join the editorial staff of the Israeli Army magazine "Bamachane", where he worked as a photographer and writer for the next eight years. In 1959 and 1960 he was awarded the Robert Capa Award. He began freelancing in 1966, and covered the Six-Day War in 1967.

In the mid-1960s, Bar-Am curated several exhibits and books with Cornell Capa, including Israel: The Reality. He assisted Capa with the establishment of the International Center for Photography in 1974, and became an active curator. From 1977 to 1993, he was curator of photography at the Tel Aviv Museum. His reportages on Israel have been published in a large number of magazines and books.

Awards

2000 Israel Prize for Visual Arts
1993 Enrique Kavlin Prize, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
1985/86 Nieman Fellow, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachussetts, USA
1985 IBM Fellowship, Aspen, Colorado, USA
1985 Golden Flamingo Award for Photographic Poster, Arles, France
1985 Fulbright Grant
1959/60 Robert Capa Award

Exhibitions

2000 Micha Bar-Am: Photographs – Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
1998 Israel: Die Ersten 50 Jahre - Eine Fotobiographie – traveling exhibition, Germany
1998 Israel: A Photobiography – International Center for Photography, New York, NY,
USA (traveled to Los Angeles, Houston, Memphis, Oklahoma City)
1996 The Last War – Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel
1992 Patterns of Jewish Life – Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
1990 Israel: The Stormy Years – Barbican Centre, London, UK
1985 Micha Bar-Am – International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House,
Rochester, USA
1982 Israel Diary: 1956-1982 – International Center for Photography, New York, NY,
USA
1981 Micha Bar-Am – G. Ray Hawkins gallery, Los Angeles, USA
1979 Jews in Egypt – Spring 1979 – Diaspora Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel
1975 Micha Bar-Am: Photographs – Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel

Collections

Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel
Haifa Museum, Haifa, Israel
Diaspora Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel
The Museum of Photography at Tel Hai, Tel Hai Kibbutz, Israel
International Center of Photography, New York, USA
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA
International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, USA
Skirball Museum, Los Angeles, USA
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, USA
Henry Buhl Collection, New York, USA
Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany
Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France
Musee d’Art et d’Histoire du Juda?sme, Paris, France
Collection FNAC, Paris, France
Fundacion “La Caixa”, Barcelona, Spain
National Maritime Museum, London, UK

Books

1998 Israel: A Photobiography, Simon & Schuster, USA
1996 The Last War, Keter Publishers, Israel
1991 Painting With Light: The Photographic Aspect in the Work of E.M. Lilian, Tel Aviv
Museum of Art/Dvir Publishing, Israel
1984 Jewish Sites in Lebanon, Moreshet Erets-Yisrael/Ariel, USA
1981 The Jordan, Massada Ltd., Israel
1970 Portrait of Israel, New York Times/American Heritage Press, USA
1957 Across Sinai, Hakibbutz Hameuhad, Israel