George Rodger
George Rodger | |
---|---|
Born | Hale, Cheshire, England | 19 March 1908
Died | 24 July 1995 Ashford, Kent, England | (aged 87)
Occupation | Photographer |
Organization | Magnum Photos |
Spouses | |
Children | 3, including Elliot Rodger (grandson) |
George William Adam Rodger (19 March 1908 – 24 July 1995)[2] was a British photojournalist. He was noted for his work in Africa, and for photographing mass deaths at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the end of the World War II.[3]
Life and career
Born in
With the outbreak of the Second World War, Rodger had a strong urge to chronicle the war. His photographs of the Blitz gained him a job as a war correspondent for Life magazine, based in the United States. Rodger covered the war in West Africa extensively and, towards the end of the war, followed the Allies' liberation of France, Belgium and Netherlands. He also covered the retreat of the British forces in Burma. He was probably the only British war reporter/photographer allowed to write a story on the Burma Road by travelling on it into China, with special permission from the Chinese military.[citation needed]
Rodger was one of many photographers to enter the
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Cameroon, ca.1950
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French Equatorial Africa, ca.1950
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Flevoland, ca.1950
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Flevoland, ca,1950
Founding member of Magnum Photos and work in Africa
In 1947, Rodger became a founding member of
His photographs made in 1948 and 1949 of indigenous people of the Nuba mountains, in the Sudanese province of Kordofan, and the Latuka and other tribes of southern Sudan, have been called "some of the most historically important and influential images taken in sub-Saharan Africa during the twentieth century".[4] As Rodger wrote several years later, "When we came to leave the Nuba Jebels (mountains), we took with us only memories of a people ... so much more hospitable, chivalrous and gracious than many of us who live in the 'Dark Continents' outside Africa."[5] In 1951, Rodger published his photo essay on the Nuba and Latuka also in National Geographic.[6] - In the 1960s, his pictures prompted controversial German photographer and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl to travel to the Nuba mountains for her own photo stories on the Nuba people.[7]
A retrospective exhibition of Rodger's work was held at Imperial War Museum North in 2008.[8]
Marriage, family
Rodger's first wife, Cicely, who travelled extensively with him in Africa, died during childbirth in 1949. In 1952, he married his American assistant Lois "Jinx" Witherspoon and the pair had two sons, one of whom, Peter, became a filmmaker in Britain. He was the grandfather of Elliot Rodger, who committed the 2014 Isla Vista killings in California, United States, where he killed six people and injured fourteen others before committing suicide.[9]
Publications
- Red Moon Rising. Cresset Press, 1943.
- Desert Journey. Cresset, 1944.
- Village des Noubas. 1955.
- Le Sahara. 1957.
- George Rodger: Humanity and Inhumanity. 1994.
- ISBN 978-3-7913-8322-4.
- Southern Sudan. Stanley Barker, 2018.
References
- ^ "Opinion / More to the Picture: LETTER to the EDITOR". NYTimes.com. 14 October 1994.
- ^ Alan Riding (26 July 1995). "George Rodger Is Dead at 87; A Pioneering Photojournalist". The New York Times.
- ISBN 9781442615700.
- ^ "George Rodger. Nuba & Latuka. The colour photographs". Magnum photos. 2017. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
- ^ Schuman, Aaron (5 June 2017). "'Lost' early color photographs of Sudanese tribes published". CNN. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
- ^ National Geographic (28 November 2014). "Wrestling keeps 'identity of the Nuba' alive in Sudanese refugee camps". National Geographic News. Archived from the original on 19 May 2020. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
- ^ Holocaust education & archive research team (2010). "Leni Riefenstahl". Holocaust research project. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
- ^ Akbar, Arifa (4 January 2008). "The golden age of photojournalism is recalled in George Rodger exhibition". The Independent. Retrieved 9 March 2013.
- ^ Sherwell, Philip (24 May 2014). "California drive-by shooting: 'Son of Hunger Games assistant director' Elliot Rodger suspected of killing six". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 25 May 2014. Retrieved 2 July 2014.
External links
- Magnum biography
- (in French) Sample portfolio of Rodger's WWII photographs
- Brunei Gallery, Samples of Rodger's African photographs
- The Nuba Mountains Homepage
- George Rodger photographs at International Center of Photography