CHIM: A web biography of David Seymour  


 

Photograph by George Rodger, 1948

George Rodger (1908-1995), the great English photo-journalist, had numerous occupations prior to becoming a photographer for Life magazine. He was one of a select few assigned to cover the first Allied invasion in Europe at Salerno, but due to the early hour (3:30 AM), the invasion was documented and conveyed to the public through drawings. Rodger traversed much of the globe in order to cover the events of the war. He became a close friend of Robert Capa, with whom he shared an apartment in Paris at one time. He was one of the founding members of Magnum.

According to Inge Bondi (biographer of Chim and Rodger), Rodger was a life-long admirer of Chim. She writes: Notable about George was that as LIFE was correspondent he covered the Blitz, in London, then drove across Africa from West to East by car, in pursuit of the war, including the war in North Africa, traveled throughout the Middle East, was caught in Burma by the Japanese invasion and walked to safety through the jungle into India. George photographed in Italy with Capa and was the first British photographer to arrive at the German concentration camp of Bergen Belsen. When he found himself photographing corpses, he swore that this would be the last of his war photography, and it was.

His 1994 book, Humanity and Inhumanity, was published by Phaidon and includes a foreword by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

 

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