Ranjith Kally (South Africa 1925-2017)
Chief Albert Luthuli at his shop in Groutville, near Stanger, Natal, 1960.

silver gelatin print

Artwork date: 1960, printed 2004
Signature details: signed and numbered A/P 3/3 on the reverse
Exhibited: Goodman Gallery , Johannesburg, 'Ranjith Kally: 60 Years in Black and White', April to May 2004, an example from the edition exhibited.
Exchange Rates*: USD 2 700 - 3 300
GBP 2 024 - 2 473
EURO 2 325 - 2 842

(1)

image size: 40 x 27 cm; framed size: 59.5 x 49.5 x 1.5 cm

Provenance:

Private collection, Cape Town.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Ranjith Kally is a celebrated South African photojournalist whose lens captured both the turbulence and the resilience of life under apartheid.

Working for Drum magazine from 1955 to 1985, he documented the struggles of the Indian community in KwaZulu-Natal, the remnants of indentured labour, and the forced removals in Natal. Beyond the political sphere, Kally also photographed the jazz icons of the 1950s, as well as exiled artists like Miriam Makeba, whose performances embodied both joy and heartbreak. His work stands as an enduring testament to South Africa’s history, memory, and resistance.

This image presents a historic moment in the life of Albert Luthuli, then-president of the African National Congress (ANC), who had just received news of being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960. Captured in his small spaza shop in Groutville, where he had been banished by the apartheid government, Luthuli’s quiet strength and humility shine through. Despite his political isolation and the hardships imposed by the state, Kally’s portrait reveals a man of unwavering principle and warmth. The shop, located near the Gledhow Mill where Luthuli once delivered his sugar cane, stood beside the railway track where he would tragically lose his life in 1967.

Of this photograph Ranjith Kally recalls:

Even though he had faced extreme hardship from the State, and was isolated even from his own party because of his adherence to non-violent principles, he was such a jovial, humble person that it made him a joy to photograph.[1]

^{[1] Ranjith Kally in Memory Against Forgetting the work of Ranjith Kally. Cape Town: Quivertree, 2014, p.20.}

COLLECTOR'S NOTE

• Ranjith Kally’s photos have been included in significant local and international group exhibitions such as The Finest Photos in Old Drum (1987), Sof’town Blues (1994), In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present at the Guggenheim Museum (1996), Margins to Mainstream: Lost South African Photographers (1994), and The Indian in DRUM magazine in the 1950s (2008), among others.

• His images are an invaluable archive of the social history of Durban from 1948-1994 and have been used extensively in books such as Portrait of Indian South Africans (1969) by Fatima Meer, From Canefields to Freedom: A Documentary on Indian South African Life (2000) by Uma Duphelia-Mesthrie. He published The Struggle, 60 Years in Focus: Ranjith Kally (2004) and the most recent survey of his work is titled Memory Against Forgetting (2014).

COLLECTIONS:

The artist is represented in numerous local and international collections, notably, the Johannesburg Art Gallery; Durban Art Gallery; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Durban Local History Museum and the SABC collection, Johannesburg.