Pitt Rivers celebrates life of Sir Wilfred Thesiger

Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum today launches a year-long exhibition to mark the centenary of the birth of Sir Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003) - perhaps the greatest traveller of the 20th century and one of its greatest explorers. Thesiger took more than 17,000 photographs in Africa and the exhibition has selected 61 of the best examples of his life's work. The photographs, many of them portraits of people he met, span 50 years and explore his enduring relationship with the continent where he was born and where he lived in later years. Although he is most famous for his journeys in Arabia and his sojourns among the Marsh Arabs in Iraq, 50 of his 70 years were spent living, travelling and exploring remote places in East and North Africa. Born in Addis Ababa, where his father was the British Minister in charge of the Legation, he lived there until 1919, when his family returned to England. Longing to return to Ethiopia in 1930, Thesigner received a personal invitation to Ras Tafari's coronation as Emperor Haile Selassie, beginning his life of travel and adventure. Writing in later life of his childhood in Ethiopia, Thesiger remarked: 'I am certain that the first nine years of my life have influenced everything that followed.' This is the first exhibition to explore his lifelong relationship with Africa.