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Block Party (from Deep South/New York City Life)

Ernest Cole
Block Party (from Deep South/New York City Life), circa 1973
Vintage silver gelatin print
Image: 20.3 x 30.5 cm

Widely considered as South Africa's first Black front line photographer, Ernest Cole chronicled the brutal realities of apartheid South Africa in candid photographs by obscuring his camera in a lunch pail or item of clothing. Escaping South Africa, Cole arrived in New York and published the critically acclaimed “House of Bondage”, 1967 which was a sensation internationally exposing the criminality of the apartheid regime. Cole’s archive was rediscovered after 40 years having died in obscurity. Amongst his effects, were his American vintage prints unseen since their time of production. Commissioned by the Ford Foundation, Cole undertook research documenting the American North and South, from the perspective of a man who endured Apartheid. These extremely rare, vintage prints unveil the life of ordinary African Americans in Harlem or Alabama.