After spending two years traveling the world with the British Merchant Navy and living in America working various job during the depression, George Rodger started his professional career as a BBC photographer with a brief stint at Black Star Agency.
At the outbreak of war he became a war correspondent for the American magazine LIFE, and for the next seven years his assignments took him to sixty-two countries where he covered over eighteen war campaigns. Some of his most notable photographs during the war included the London Blitz, West Africa with the Free French, the fall of Burma, the Sicilian and Salerno landings, the Battle of Monte Cassino, the D-Day Normandy landings, the Liberation of Paris, Brussels Holland and Denmark, the Surrender at Luneberg and the liberation of Belsen Concentration Camp.
Known as “The quiet Englishman” because of his self-effacing demeanour, George Rodger described himself as a dreamer who took up photography to see what the world had to offer beyond his horizons. This exploration would take him into desert, jungle, war and many parts of the world. And in 1947 he would join Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson and David (Chim) Seymour in establishing the renowned photographic agency Magnum Photos.
His main work concerned the vanishing tribes and wildlife of Africa and the documentation of ethnic people in remote areas. He also travelled extensively throughout the Far East, India and the Middle East, writing and illustrating articles for magazines in Europe and America
In 1959, George Rodger and his wife settled in the small village of Smarden, in Kent, where he wrote and illustrated for magazines but still continued his travels, mainly to Africa which, with his camera, was his favourite hunting ground. He died at his home in Kent in 1995. His archives remain under the care of his wife Jinx and his son Jon. Magnum Photos continue to distribute his work from their four offices in Paris, New York, London and Tokyo.
