Pensive tribesmen, newly recruited to mine labour, awaiting processing and assignment, South Africa, 1960s. (c) Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos
Pensive tribesmen, newly recruited to mine labour, awaiting processing and assignment, South Africa, 1960s. (c) Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos 
TITLE_NAME :
Ernest Cole: House of Bondage

14/06/2024 - 22/09/2024

The Photographers' Gallery 
16-18 Ramillies Street 
 
W1F 7LW London

thephotographersgallery.org.uk/   

 
This exhibition revisits South African photographer Ernest Cole’s ground-breaking project House of Bondage, one of the most significant photobooks of the twentieth century.
South African photographer Ernest Cole (1940–1990) is considered one of the most important chroniclers of apartheid politics. This substantial exhibition revisits Cole’s ground-breaking project House of Bondage. In 1966 Cole fled South Africa and smuggled out his photographs, settling in New York. House of Bondage was published in 1967 and revealed the brutality and injustice of apartheid to the world, vividly documenting the everyday life of the Black population in South Africa. It became one of the most significant photobooks of the twentieth century. In more than 100 photographs, the exhibition covers all 15 thematic chapters into which Cole has divided House of Bondage and also includes works from the chapter Black Ingenuity, which was not published in the original edition of the book.