Thesiger Collection
Wilfred Thesiger in Abu Dhabi, 1948. 2004.130.17291.1Sir Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003) was probably the greatest traveller of
the twentieth century, and one of its greatest explorers. His travel writings,
such as Arabian Sands (1959) and The Marsh Arabs (1964),
have been hailed as classics of travel literature, and his later publications,
such as Desert, Marsh and Mountain (1979), introduced many more
people to his remarkable archive of photography spanning over fifty years
of travel.
In 2004 his collection of 38,000 negatives and 71 personal albums were accepted by the UK government via its art in lieu of inheritance tax scheme and allocated to the Pitt Rivers Museum.
The Museum has organised several exhibitions of the collection since 1993. In June 2010 the Museum opened its most recent exhibition, ‘Wilfred Thesiger in Africa: A Centenary Exhibition’, accompanied by a major new publication Wilfred Thesiger in Africa (Harper Press).
In 2003-4 the Museum embarked on a cataloguing and digitization project with funding from the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates.
Online Resources
Over 1300 of Thesiger’s previously published and exhibited images are now available to view online and order as prints via www.prmprints.com
Publishers wishing to order high-resolution images and rights for images from the Thesiger collection can now do so via www.prmimages.com
