Description

“Not since Goya has anyone portrayed war like Philip Jones Griffiths,” said Magnum co-founder Henri Cartier-Bresson of the photographer and Magnum president. Philip Jones Griffiths’ work, however, captures a far wider portrait of the human condition than its penchant for conflict. While he photographed extreme violence in Vietnam and Algeria, Griffiths also documented ordinary life in Great Britain, the reality of living through The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and global communities with radically different ways of life to the one that he grew up with in his native Wales. The detailed texts and captions that accompany his images reveal astute observations about the mechanics of war, the Western psyche and collisions of ideology.

The ability to keep things in perspective is very important for a journalist. In a tense situation you need the ability to be there, yet somehow step aside; to keep a cool head and keep working without getting frustrated

Philip Jones Griffiths
© Philip Jones Griffiths | Magnum Photos

Born in Rhuddlan, Wales, Philip Jones Griffiths studied pharmacy in Liverpool and worked in London while photographing part-time for the Manchester Guardian. In 1961, he became a full-time freelancer for the London-based Observer, covering the Algerian War in 1962, in Central Africa, Asia and Vietnam.

Griffiths’ assignments, often self-engineered, have taken him to more than 120 countries. He continued to work for major publications such as Life and Geo on stories such as Buddhism in Cambodia, droughts in India, poverty in Texas, the re-greening of Vietnam, and the legacy of the Gulf War in Kuwait.

Griffiths’ work reflects on the unequal relationship between technology and humanity, summed up in his book Dark Odyssey. Human foolishness always attracted Griffiths’ eye, but, faithful to the ethics of the Magnum founders, he believed in human dignity and in the capacity for improvement. Philip Jones Griffiths died at home in West London on 19th March 2008.

© Philip Jones Griffiths | Magnum Photos

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