Colonial and Apartheid Africa Locals, Labor, and Angolan Rebel Camps Photo Journalism Archive, 1960-1970

Colonial Apartheid Africa

Photograph

African press photo archive credited on the versos to Tomas D.W. Friedmann, documenting images of anticolonial war, apartheid labor, urban growth, and locals across Africa in 1970. These press photos translated events in Angola, South Africa, Nigeria, and Tunisia into public facing articles for western audiences. At the time of production, Angola was still fighting Portuguese colonial rule in 1970, while South Africa’s mining economy and urban development remained bound to apartheid labor structures centered on Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand goldfields. Tomas D.W. Friedmann, was a press photographer (1925-2012), traveled globally, documenting Africaand its art.

Photo archive of 9 silver gelatin photographs, each 8" x 10", Africa, circa 1960-1970. The archive belongs to the late colonial and apartheid era, when American editorial photography often compressed Africa into legible news features of conflict, labor, ritual, wildlife, and into ethnic stereotypes for news splashes, even as decolonization and liberation struggles were reshaping the continent.Verso labels identify specific scenes including “Nigeria: Kano / snake being charmed,” “South Africa / Daggafontein gold miners pushing cart with ore underground,” “Union of South Africa, Johannesburg, north-eastern section of town with sand-hills of the goldmines,” “Tunisia: boy climbing palm tree and diving into Roman tanks below, in which Gafsa boys swim,” and two Angola captions describing “rebel held territory” where a patrol meets refugees in the bush and “early morning exercises at rebel army camp Serra de Canda deep inside rain forest.” The group image depicts an Angolan rebel army that has been fighting liberation from Portugal since 1961. Another South Africa caption identifies a Durban whaling scene with Africans beginning to cut up a whale, while one photograph of men and boys in furred ceremonial dress is marked in later handwriting “South Africa / Xhosa doctors.” Light surface and edge wear, minor curling, otherwise clean and legible; overall very good condition. The group anchors itself in the historical upheaval of decolonization, where armed resistance to Portuguese rule, entrenched apartheid industry, and postcolonial social change were being documented and mediated for western audiences.

Item #23193

Price: $725.00