hand-printed Silver Gelatin prints on Ilford Fibre-based paper

Artwork date: circa 1965; Estate Edition printed 2021
Signature details: titled and numbered; signed on the reverse in pencil by Dennis da Silva and Leslie Matlaisane; embossed with Estate stamp
Edition: Estate Edition of 12 images; number 3 from an edition of 10 + 2AP

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image size: 37 x 55.5 cm; sheet size: 51 x 61 cm unframed

Courtesy Ernest Cole Family Trust

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 which he 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 self-esteem 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 offered 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 hidden work accessible for educational and research purposes.

This Estate Edition of 20 x 24” silver gelatin prints, feature twelve of the most iconic images from House of Bondage (1967) and Ernest Cole: Photographer (Hasselblad Foundation / Steidl, 2010). 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.

Including: Traditional dancing on the mines, Gauteng [Transvaal], South Africa, c 1965;

Shebeen with white and black patrons, Riverside, Pretoria [Tshwane], Gauteng [Transvaal], South Africa, c 1965;

Children play with sprinklers, Gauteng [Transvaal], South Africa, c 1965, cover of Ernest Cole published by Hasselblad Foundation/Steidl in 2010;

Young white woman holds a black baby, Gauteng [Transvaal], South Africa, c 1965;

Domestic worker with white child. Servants not forbidden to love. “I love this child, though she’ll grow up to treat me just like her mother does. Now she is innocent.” Gauteng [Transvaal], South Africa, c 1965;

Woman dancing. Atmosphere of the shebeen is free, in contrast to that of regimented beer halls, Gauteng [Transvaal], South Africa, c 1965;

Man playing guitar in shebeen, Gauteng [Transvaal], South Africa, c 1965;

Bishop in mitre makes his yearly visit to Mamelodi parish, Gauteng [Transvaal], South Africa, c 1965;

Old traditions from a modern wedding. Women greet couple with symbols of wife’s duties to husband and family, Gauteng [Transvaal], South Africa, c 1965;

Rented car is a status symbol at a middle-class marriage. Expensive wedding can leave couple broke for a year, Gauteng [Transvaal], South Africa, c 1965;

Driving lesson, Gauteng [Transvaal], South Africa, c 1965;

Revellers at a music festival, Gauteng [Transvaal], South Africa, c 1965