Philip Jones Griffiths

Born in Rhuddlan, Wales, in 1936, Philip Jones Griffiths began his career as a pharmacist, but turned to photography in the early 1960s. As a free-lance photojournalist, he covered the wars in Algeria and Vietnam (his book "Vietnam Inc." was published in 1971), and in the 1970s worked in Cambodia and Thailand. Griffiths moved to New York City in 1980 to assume the post of president at the Magnum Photo agency--a position he held for a record five years. His photographs have appeared in every...See more

Born in Rhuddlan, Wales, in 1936, Philip Jones Griffiths began his career as a pharmacist, but turned to photography in the early 1960s. As a free-lance photojournalist, he covered the wars in Algeria and Vietnam (his book "Vietnam Inc." was published in 1971), and in the 1970s worked in Cambodia and Thailand. Griffiths moved to New York City in 1980 to assume the post of president at the Magnum Photo agency--a position he held for a record five years. His photographs have appeared in every major magazine in the world, including "Life," "Time," "Newsweek," and "Geo." Griffiths has also made several documentary films, on subjects ranging from the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the descendants of the HMS Bounty living on Pitcairn Island. "A Welsh Eye," a film about the photographer, was shown in Britain in 1991. Murray Sayle has written for "Encounter," "Harper's," "Life," "The New Republic," "The New Statesman," "The Spectator," "The New Yorker," "The New York Times Review of Books," "The New York Review of Books," and many other publications. See less