5th Nov, 2020 19:00

Aspire X PLP | African Photography Auction 2020

 
Lot 48
 

48

Ernest Cole (South Africa 1940-1990)
Twelve works from The House of Bondage

hand printed silver gelatin prints on Ilford fibre-based paper

Artwork date: circa 1965, Estate Edition printed 2020
Signature details: each inscribed with the title and numbered; signed in pencil by Dennis da Silva and Leslie Matlaisane on the reverse; embossed with the Estate stamp
Edition: number 3 from an edition of 10 + 2AP

Sold for R586,250
Estimated at R350,000 - R500,000


 

hand printed silver gelatin prints on Ilford fibre-based paper

Artwork date: circa 1965, Estate Edition printed 2020
Signature details: each inscribed with the title and numbered; signed in pencil by Dennis da Silva and Leslie Matlaisane on the reverse; embossed with the Estate stamp
Edition: number 3 from an edition of 10 + 2AP

(12)

most image sizes: 36.5 x 55.5 cm each (one is 37 x 46 cm), sheet sizes: 50.5 x 61 cm each, unframed

Notes:

Ernest Cole was born in Eersterust, near Pretoria (Tshwane), in 1940 and died in New York in 1990. Cole worked for Drum magazine, Bantu World and Sunday Times. On his own initiative, he undertook a comprehensive photographic essay in whichhe chronicled the horrors of apartheid. Out of this emerged the seminal book, The House of Bondage, which was published in New York in 1967. As Cole wrote in the book, "Three-hundred years of white supremacy in South Africa has placed us in bondage, stripped us of our dignity, robbed us of our selfesteem and surrounded us with hate." He paid a price for his commitment and documentation – the book was immediately banned and so was he. Cole lived in exile until his death in New York in 1990, a week after Nelson Mandela and others were released from prison.There has been much speculation about what happened to his negatives and prints. Until relatively recently, it was thought all his negatives and many prints were lost. However, in 2017, 60 000 negatives which had been rediscovered in Stockholm, were handed to the Ernest Cole Family Trust by the Hasselblad Foundation. These include never-before-seen South African work, as well as his documentation on the American South and black life in the USA. The portfolio o"ered by the Ernest Cole Family is a part of this ‘lost’ archive and legacy. The PLP is working with the Ernest Cole Family Trust, Magnum Photos and Historical Papers, Wits University, to digitise and make this work accessible for educational and research purposes.This Estate Edition of silver gelatin prints, feature twelve of the most iconic images from House of Bondage. They have been printed from the lost negatives of Ernest Cole by Dennis da Silva, South Africa’s premier black and white photography printer, and produced through the Ernest Cole Family Trust in South Africa.

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Auction: Aspire X PLP | African Photography Auction 2020, 5th Nov, 2020

A collection of pan-African works, straddling the terrain between historical and contemporary photography, were auctioned to support the digitisation of African photographic legacies by the Photography Legacy Project (PLP). Bidders participated from across Europe, the USA and UK, Asia, Australia and Africa – a testament to Aspire’s increasing global reach and collectors’ enthusiasm for African photography.

The auction included photographic luminaries such as David Goldblatt, Alf Kumalo, G.R. Naidoo, Ranjith Kally and Ian Berry, as well as more contemporary internationally acclaimed photographers like Guy Tillim, Jo Ractliffe, Syowia Kyambi and Mikhael Subotzky. The lead lot, a portfolio of 12 silver gelatin prints from the legendary photographer Ernest Cole’s seminal 1967 book House of Bondage sold for an astounding R569,000 – a new world auction record.

 

 

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