Image Not Available
for GEORGE RODGER
GEORGE RODGER
1908 - 1995
George Rodger (1908 - 1995) began his professional career with the BBC in London and came to prominence when he photographed the 1940 Blitz for the Black Star agency, images that appeared in the pioneering magazine of photo-journalism PICTURE POST. This work brought him to the attention of LIFE magazine and he was subsequently hired as a war correspondent and photographer for them.
During those years he covered the Second World War in many of its arenas throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia with LIFE claiming that Rodger had traveled further - 75,000 miles total - and endured more pain and suffering than any other war photographer. George Rodger's journey began with General De Gaulle and the Free French forces in West Africa and saw him present at the liberation of Paris and the German surrender at Lüneberg. However it was the horrors he witnessed inside the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp that were to define the war for him and shape his future.
In 1947 George Rodger established the renowned co-operative agency Magnum. Photos with Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson and David 'Chim' Seymour. Choosing Africa as his corner of the globe he once again found joy in his first love of travel by immersing himself in the "healing innocence" of that continent. On a personal level his expeditions were an effort to rediscover humanity, and by showing the utmost respect for local people and customs he gained access to tribes relatively untouched by the modern world.
Rodger's work in Africa for Magnum started in 1948 with a journey by road from Cape Town to Cairo, and in the years that followed he made many more trips to the continent with the last being in 1979. In this time he came to know Africa comprehensively, documenting never before seen tribes in work that has subsequently become his most famous, including studies of the Nubas of Southern Sudan and the Masais of Kenya.
The Photographers' Gallery, London. "George Rodger." [http://www.photonet.org.uk/index.php?id=104,361,0,0,1,0] accessed May 2, 2007.
Person TypeIndividual