McCurry's 1985 image of Sharbat Gula. © Steve McCurry

Hartlepool Art Gallery in County Durham will be showing a touring exhibition of the photos of renowned photojournalist Steve McCurry.

The exhibition, Faces Of Asia, opens on September 23 and runs until November 5 2006, and is the largest and broadest selection of his photographs to be shown in public, many of which have become iconic images.

It will feature 100 images from India, Afghanistan, Tibet and Cambodia and is the only UK venue on the exhibition’s international tour.

The exhibition takes in scenes from India, Tibet, Cambodia and Afghanistan. © Steve McCurry

McCurry is a highly regarded photojournalist who has shot pictures for magazines like Time, Newsweek and numerous covers for National Geographic and is perhaps best known for his mesmerising 1985 shot of Sharbat Gula, an Afghan girl with piecing green eyes.

He made international headlines in 2002 when he returned to Afghanistan to find Sharbat in a refugee camp 17 years later before the first photo.

Born in Philadelphia, USA, McCurry graduated from the College of Arts and Architecture at Pennsylvania State University.

Fishermen. © Steve McCurry

After two years working at a newspaper his career was launched in earnest when, dressed in native clothes, he crossed the border into rebel-controlled Afghanistan just before the Russian invasion in 1979. He was one of the first photographers to take images chronicling the conflict there.

As well as Afghanistan, which he continues to visit, McCurry’s photos cover many areas like Tibet, Yemen and the temples at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. He has covered many civil wars and international conflicts such as the Iran-Iraq war, Beirut, the Phillipines and the Gulf War.