JANUARY 27 TO APRIL 14, 2006

FIFTY YEARS ON THE FRONTLINE
PHILIP JONES GRIFFITHS

Exhibition Dates

January 26
OPENING PREVIEW RECEPTION – FIFTY YEARS ON THE FRONTLINES
5:30 - 7:00 p.m.

March 1
MUSEUM OPEN HOUSE
Fifty Years on the Frontlines
5:30 - 7:00 p.m.

March 15
MUSEUM OPEN HOUSE
Meet author Peter Howe
5:30 - 7:00 p.m.

March 15
MUSEUM LECTURE SERIES
Peter Howe - Vietnam, Other Wars and Philip Jones Griffiths
7:00 p.m. Bldg. 150, Rm.101 (Lecture Hall, UCF) DBCC

 

aircraft carrier flight deck

“Not Since Goya has anyone portrayed war like Philip Jones Griffiths”.
Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Young BoyPhilip Jones-Griffiths' has produced unforgettable photographs for over five decades on the front lines of world conflict. Tackling love, death, frivolity, politics and violence, Griffiths' photographs comment profoundly on virtually every aspect of human emotion. The exhibition traces Griffiths compelling journey through the British presence in Northern Ireland, colonialism in Rhodesia, the Algerian & Yom Kippur wars, the Vietnam War, and, both in the United States and in Viet Nam, the post-war era. It is a powerful collection of black-and-white photographs presented in installation format.

 

Badly hurt personBorn in Rhuddlan, Wales, Philip Jones Jones Griffiths photographed for the Manchester Guardian. In 1961 he became a full-time freelancer for the London Observer. He covered the Algerian War in 1962 then became based in Central Africa, moving from there to Asia. He photographed in Vietnam from 1966 to 1968. He went back to Vietnam in 1970. Jones Griffiths became a member of the Magnum agency in 1971 and served as President from 1980 to 1985. His photographs have appeared in every major magazine in the world. Griffiths, who has exhibited widely in the US and Europe has continued to work for Life and Géo on such stories about buddhism in Cambodia, drought in India, poverty in Texas, the re-greening of Vietnam, and the legacy of the war in Kuwait.

“Of all the books about (the War,) this is the truest, the most important, the most upsetting…the best work of photo-reportage of war ever published”. The New Statesman.

Griffiths is perhaps best known for his seminal Vietnam Inc, generally regarded as one of the finest collections of photographs to come out of that long war. Vietnam Inc. crystallized public opinion and was essential in shaping Western misgivings about the US involvement in Vietnam and ultimately helping to bring the war to an end. Griffiths' images were some of the first to clearly show the mismatch of American soldiers in a place they didn't belong. He felt that America had became lost in a conflict run by a government which had lost its perspective about its place in the world. Ultimately, he showed the public the real horrors of the Vietnam War. The outcome of three years of reporting, Vietnam Inc. is one of the most detailed surveys of any conflict, and its effectiveness depends also on the author's personal layout and commentaries, both matter of fact and darkly ironic. His other books include Dark Odyssey; Agent Orange, Collateral Damage in Vietnam and Vietnam at Peace.devastation

Presented in association with Philip Jones Griffiths, Magnum Photos, Trolley Books, Artists for Humanity and Duggal Visual Solutions. Curated by George Carrano.

Programs for Fifty Years on the Frontline                                                                  

Soldiers