7th Jun, 2023 18:00
20th Century & Contemporary Art
12
Ernest Cole (South Africa 1940-1990)
Twelve works from House of Bondage
hand printed silver gelatin prints on Ilford fibre-based paper
Artwork date: c.1965, Estate Edition printed in 2023
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 4 from an edition of 10 + 2APs
Exhibited: Photographs from the House of Bondage have been exhibited worldwide at various prominent institutions including SFMOMA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Barbican Art Gallery in London; Fowler Museum at the University of California, MODERNA Museet in Stockholm and the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town. Most recent exhibitions include:MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York, Ernest Cole’s House of Bondage, ongoing; FOAM Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, Ernest Cole: House of Bondage, 26 January to 14 June 2023; SMART Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Hyde Park, Not All Realisms, 23 February to 4 June; TATE Modern, London, Ernest Cole, 1 February to 19 July 2022. A selection of photographs from House of Bondage is currently on view at MoMA in New York. In June 2023, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Eschborn will open the first major exhibition in Germany dedicated to Ernest Cole. The exhibition will showcase 130 photographs from House of Bondage.
Literature: Cole, E. (2010). 'Ernest Cole: Photographer'. Göttingen: Steidl, examples from the edition illustrated on various pages.; Cole, E. (1967). 'House of Bondage: A South African Black Man Exposes in His Own Pictures and Words the Bitter Life of his Homeland Today'. New York :Random House, examples from the series illustrated on various pages.
hand printed silver gelatin prints on Ilford fibre-based paper
Artwork date: c.1965, Estate Edition printed in 2023
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 4 from an edition of 10 + 2APs
Exhibited: Photographs from the House of Bondage have been exhibited worldwide at various prominent institutions including SFMOMA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Barbican Art Gallery in London; Fowler Museum at the University of California, MODERNA Museet in Stockholm and the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town. Most recent exhibitions include:MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York, Ernest Cole’s House of Bondage, ongoing; FOAM Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, Ernest Cole: House of Bondage, 26 January to 14 June 2023; SMART Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Hyde Park, Not All Realisms, 23 February to 4 June; TATE Modern, London, Ernest Cole, 1 February to 19 July 2022. A selection of photographs from House of Bondage is currently on view at MoMA in New York. In June 2023, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Eschborn will open the first major exhibition in Germany dedicated to Ernest Cole. The exhibition will showcase 130 photographs from House of Bondage.
Literature: Cole, E. (2010). 'Ernest Cole: Photographer'. Göttingen: Steidl, examples from the edition illustrated on various pages.; Cole, E. (1967). 'House of Bondage: A South African Black Man Exposes in His Own Pictures and Words the Bitter Life of his Homeland Today'. New York :Random House, examples from the series illustrated on various pages.
(1)
most image sizes: 36.5 x 55.5 cm each; (one is 37 x 46 cm), sheet size: 50.5 x 61 cm each unframed
Provenance:
Ernest Cole Family Trust, Cape Town.
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
Ernest Cole was born in Eersterust, near Pretoria (Tshwane), in 1940 and died in New York in 1990. In South Africa, Cole worked in the design department at Drum magazine and then as a photographer at Bantu World (later renamed The Sowetan). In the early 1960s he started to freelance for publications including Drum, the Rand Daily Mail, The World and the Sunday Express. Cole was therefore South Africa’s first black freelance photographer. On his own initiative, he also undertook a comprehensive photographic essay in which he chronicled the incredible hardships 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 self-esteem and surrounded us with hate." He paid a price for his commitment and documentation – the book was immediately banned in South Africa, and so was he.
Cole lived in exile until his death in New York in 1990, a week after Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were released from prison. Since his death, 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. This portfolio is a part of this ‘lost’ archive and legacy. The Photography Legacy Project (PLP) has worked 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, features 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.
COLLECTOR'S NOTE
Photographs from the House of Bondage have been exhibited worldwide at various prominent institutions including SFMOMA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Barbican Art Gallery in London; Fowler Museum at the University of California, MODERNA Museet in Stockholm and the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town.
Most recent exhibitions include:
MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York, Ernest Cole’s House of Bondage, ongoing.
FOAM Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, Ernest Cole: House of Bondage, 26 January to 14 June 2023.
SMART Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Hyde Park, Not All Realisms, 23 February to 4 June.
TATE Modern, London, Ernest Cole, 1 February to 19 July 2022.
A selection of photographs from House of Bondage is currently on view at MoMA in New York. In June 2023, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Eschborn will open the first major exhibition in Germany dedicated to Ernest Cole. The exhibition will showcase 130 photographs from House of Bondage.
You can place an absentee bid through our website - please sign in to your account on our website to proceed.
In the My Account tab you can also enter telephone bids, or email bids@aspireart.net to log telephone/absentee bids.
Join us on the day of the auction to follow and bid in real-time.
The auction will be live-streamed with an audio-visual feed.
Auction: 20th Century & Contemporary Art, 7th Jun, 2023
Aspire Art will impress collectors with this focused, boutique-style auction in Johannesburg. A feature of the carefully compiled collection is a strong focus on contemporary African artists. Collectors of contemporary works from Africa will be spoilt for choice with works by Thierry Oussou (Benin), Richard Mudariki (Zimbabwe) and Banele Khoza (Swaziland). Local contemporary favourites include Nandipha Mntambo, Cinga Samson and Gerhard Marx amongst others. Contemporary photographers are also well represented with works by Aida Muluneh (Ethiopia), Kudzanai Chiurai (Zimbabwe) and South African international superstar, Zanele Muholi, while important historical images are included with works of Winnie Mandela by Alf Kumalo and a portfolio of twelve works – chronicling the hardships of apartheid – from Ernest Cole’s seminal House of Bondage (1967).
A highlight of the sale is South African modernist Alexis Preller’s, Adam (1972) – a recently discovered, never before seen, work forming part of Preller’s series of Adamic-themed works from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Other significant modern pieces include a unique terrazzo sculpture by Edoardo Villa, still lifes by Maggie Laubser and works by Cecil Skotnes, Walter Battiss and J.H Pierneef.
The sale concludes with a special section of William Kentridge editioned prints led by the impressive Blue Head (1993 – 1998).
Viewing
Viewing will be open from Friday 2 to Wednesday 7 June 8:30 to 16:30 and Saturday 3 June from 10:00 to 14:00.
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Logistics
While we endeavour to assist our Clients as much as possible, we require artwork(s) to be delivered and/or collected from our premises by the Client. In instances where a Client is unable to deliver or collect artwork(s), Aspire staff is available to assist in this process by outsourcing the services to one of our preferred Service Providers. The cost for this will be for the Client’s account, with an additional Handling Fee of 15% charged on top of the Service Provider’s invoice.
Aspire Art provides inter-company transfer services for its Clients between Johannesburg and Cape Town branches. These are based on the size of the artwork(s), and charged as follows:
Small (≤60x90x10 cm): R480
Medium (≤90x120x15 cm): R960
Large (≤120x150x20 cm): R1,440
Over-size: Special quote
Should artwork(s) be collected or delivered to/from Clients by Aspire Art directly, the following charges will apply:
Collection/delivery ≤20km: R400
Collection/delivery 20km>R800≤50km
Collection/delivery >50km: Special quote
Packaging
A flat fee of R100 will be added to the invoice for packaging of unframed works on paper.
International Collectors Shipping Package
For collectors based outside South Africa who purchase regularly from Aspire Art’s auctions in South Africa, it does not make sense to ship artworks individually or per auction and pay shipping every time you buy another work. Consequently, we have developed a special collectors’ shipping package to assist in reducing shipping costs and the constant demands of logistics arrangements.
For buyers from outside South Africa, we will keep the artworks you have purchased in storage during the year and then ship all the works you have acquired during the year together, so the shipping costs are reduced. At the end of the annual period, we will source various quotes to get you the best price, and ship all your artworks to your desired address at once.
Aspire Art will arrange suitable storage during, and cost-effective shipping at the end, of the annual period.
Collections
Collections are by appointment, with 24-hours’ notice
Clients are requested to contact the relevant office and inform Aspire Art of which artwork(s) they would like to collect, and allow a 24-hour window for Aspire Art’s logistics department to retrieve the artwork(s) and prepare them for collection.
Handling Fee
Aspire Art charges a 15% Handling Fee on all Logistics, Framing, Restoration and Conservation arranged by Aspire.