filmtwit
Desperate but not serious
Ernest Cole
Ernest Cole was born in South Africa’s Transvaal in 1940 and died in New York City in 1990. During his life he was known for only one book: House of Bondage – published in 1967. In 2011, the Hasselblad Foundation produced a follow-up: Ernest Cole: Photographer.
Cole’s early work chronicled the horrors of apartheid and in 1966 he fled the Republic of South Africa becoming a ‘banned person’. He was briefly associated with Magnum Photographers and received funding from the Ford Foundation and Time-Life. In North America, he concentrated on street photography in primarily urban settings.
Between 1969 and 1971, Cole spent an extensive amount of time on regular visits to Sweden where he became involved with the Tiofoto collective and exhibited his work. From 1972, Cole’s life fell into disarray and he ceased to work as a photographer, losing control of his archive and negatives in the process. Having experienced periods of homelessness, Cole died aged forty-nine of pancreatic cancer in 1990.
Selected Work
https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/ernest-cole
Beyond Magnum, Chapter I: Rediscovering Ernest Cole’s Archive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl_ezwHwY_8
Ernest Cole was born in South Africa’s Transvaal in 1940 and died in New York City in 1990. During his life he was known for only one book: House of Bondage – published in 1967. In 2011, the Hasselblad Foundation produced a follow-up: Ernest Cole: Photographer.
Cole’s early work chronicled the horrors of apartheid and in 1966 he fled the Republic of South Africa becoming a ‘banned person’. He was briefly associated with Magnum Photographers and received funding from the Ford Foundation and Time-Life. In North America, he concentrated on street photography in primarily urban settings.
Between 1969 and 1971, Cole spent an extensive amount of time on regular visits to Sweden where he became involved with the Tiofoto collective and exhibited his work. From 1972, Cole’s life fell into disarray and he ceased to work as a photographer, losing control of his archive and negatives in the process. Having experienced periods of homelessness, Cole died aged forty-nine of pancreatic cancer in 1990.
Selected Work
https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/ernest-cole
Beyond Magnum, Chapter I: Rediscovering Ernest Cole’s Archive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl_ezwHwY_8
p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
Brilliant pictures, I've never heard of him before. Thank you for posting this.
Retro-Grouch
Well-known
A good and sensitive soul driven to despair and, perhaps, madness. The cruelty of this world is sometimes too much to contemplate.
rulnacco
Well-known
Cole's work is truly powerful and illuminating. And he risked very much indeed to get the photos, and put them out to the world.
I was fortunate to see a good bit of his work a few years back at an exhibition in London called Everything Was Moving: Photography From the 60s and 70s. Seeing his work very near to Bruce Davidson's Civil Rights Movement documentation was a reminder just how much was at stake back then--and how despite many people's denials, particularly here in the US, we are still dealing with the echoes of that.
There is a new edition of Cole's House of Bondage available, which first brought his work, and a first-person view conditions of those under apartheid, to worldwide notice. I can recommend two others which I own, which being out of print have unfortunately escalated in price: The Photographer and the exhibition catalog from Everything Was Moving.
I was fortunate to see a good bit of his work a few years back at an exhibition in London called Everything Was Moving: Photography From the 60s and 70s. Seeing his work very near to Bruce Davidson's Civil Rights Movement documentation was a reminder just how much was at stake back then--and how despite many people's denials, particularly here in the US, we are still dealing with the echoes of that.
There is a new edition of Cole's House of Bondage available, which first brought his work, and a first-person view conditions of those under apartheid, to worldwide notice. I can recommend two others which I own, which being out of print have unfortunately escalated in price: The Photographer and the exhibition catalog from Everything Was Moving.