Inside the Mexican suitcase

In 1997 a Mexican filmmaker by the name of Benjamin Tarver discovered, in the possessions of his late aunt, three battered boxes of negatives. They had once belonged to her friend General Francisco Aguilar González, the Mexican ambassador to the Vichy government in 1941–42 and they would turn out to be one of the most exciting photographic rediscoveries of the 21st century, containing 4,500 negatives by Spanish Civil War photographers Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour (better known as "Chim"). 

Taken between May 1936 and spring 1939 the collection covers several key events including the Battle of Rio Segre, coverage of the French internment camps for Spanish refugees in Argelès-sur-Mer and Barcarès, the mobilisation for the defence of Barcelona in January 1939, and the battle of Brunete, where Taro was killed in 1937. The group also includes several rolls of portraits of Capa and Taro by Fred Stein, exiled to Paris before his flight to America, and previously unknown portraits of Ernest Hemingway, Federico Garcia Lorca, and Dolores Ibarruri (known as 'La Pasionaria).

Together with magazines of the period in which several of the images appeared, and film footage shot by Capa which corresponds with stills from the collection the discovery is currently the subject of an exhibition at the International Center of Photography in New York (until 9 January 2011).