December 1999 an exhibition at the Barry Singer Gallery in Petaluma, CA photographs by George Rodger exhibition curated by Barry Singer While his colleagues and co-founders of Magnum Photos Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and David "Chim" Seymour are famous in this country, George Rodger, the fourth musketeer, a great photojournalist who started working professionally in the London Blitz, is little known here. This wonderful exhibit organized by the Barry Singer Gallery in Petaluma, north of San Francisco, is a beginning to redress this injustice. The space itself, a ball-room under the cupola of a turn-of-the-century historic building, the varied choice of frames and the diversity of formats lend the exhibit a different "feel" than that of a scholarly museum presentation and are particularly well-suited to the photographer's spirit. Through 61 vintage prints spread out in three rooms, the exhibit traces important aspects of Rodger's career from the London Blitz to his early African trips after the war (Rodger was the first to enter Bergen-Belsen but after this traumatic experience vowed that he never again would be a war photographer). It proceeds with desert and tribal photographs taken on the numerous expeditions he made with his wife and collaborator Jinx in Africa (where they met Doctor Schweitzer), the Sahara desert and the Middle East, and finishes with a group of seldom-seen prints from Burma and Bali together with a stunning group of pictures made on Rodger's last African trip in 1980-81, when he photographed the circumcision of a Masai adolescent in Kenya, a ceremony never before or after witnessed by a white man. War correspondants Robert Capa (left) and George Rodger in Vomero, Italy, 1943. Three Bachimbiri girls, 1948 Rodger, who died in 1995, was a modest man who did not view himself as an artist. He would be surprised to see his prints analyzed and praised for their classic composition and subtle light as he was interested foremost in those whose trust he earned and who let him work freely in the most remote parts of the earth. Images such as the Pygmies of the rain forest in Uganda, absorbed in their love dance, the rainmaking dance of the Latukas in Southern Sudan or the famous image of the Nuba warrior carried over his adversary's shoulders remain etched in the mind and make for a memorable showing. For books of Rodger's work, see: - George Rodger Photographic Voyager, exhibition catalogue, Barry Singer Publishers, 1999 - George Rodger: Humanity and Inhumanity, Phaidon, 1995, repub. 1999 - Village of the Nubas, Phaidon, 1999