Will Troughton

Philip Jones Griffiths – A Welsh Focus on War and Peace
By the early 1960s Philip Jones Griffiths was an established press photographer whose photographs regularly appeared in the national newspapers of the day. In 1966 he was drawn to the unfolding war in Vietnam. Equipped with his trusty Leica cameras he travelled extensively and quickly developed an empathy for the ordinary Vietnamese caught up in the war. Finding this aspect of the war difficult to sell to the mainstream press he approached the topic from a different angle. His book Vietnam Inc was published in 1971 and remains one of the most powerful photo books of the twentieth century. It has been credited with helping sway public opinion against the Vietnam War.
Griffiths became enamoured with Vietnam and saw in it’s people many of the characteristics of the villagers of his native Rhuddlan. He went on to visit Vietnam more than twenty times publishing two more photo books on the country as it struggled to overcome the effects of war and economic isolation.
In all Philip Jones Griffiths visited more than a hundred countries in his career as a photographer, often seeking out stories himself rather than waiting for commissions. Always on the side of the underdog and the marginalised his photographs have appeared in every major magazine in the world and continue to be in demand.
A Welsh Focus on War and Peace, a joint exhibition between the National Library of Wales and the Philip Jones Griffiths Foundation, opens on June 27th. For the first time many of his cameras, documents, personal papers and artefacts will be on display alongside his photographs.