Collection comprises 251 silver bromide black-and-white photographic prints taken by David Goldblatt in South Africa during the late 1960s. Accompanying the photographs are also three 16 mm films, Soweto, On the Mines, and Some Afrikaners, created in 1976 from his still images; DVD viewing copies are available for these films. Goldblatt captured these images of gold miners and Afrikaaner people in different regions of South Africa, traveling from his hometown west of Johannesburg to the Western Cape province and the Karoo.
The photographs in this collection were published in Goldblatt's first two books: On The Mines (1973, with Nadine Gordimer) and Some Afrikaners Photographed (1975).
The On the Mines series features images from the late 1960s of both white and black South African gold miners, in groups and individually, both inside and outside the mines. The images in the Some Afrikaners series, shot from 1961 to 1968, depict the everyday life of the white South Africans known as Afrikaners, and the environment in which they lived. Subjects include school, recreation, mealtimes, buildings, decorum and dress; there are group pictures as well as individual portraits.
Print sizes vary: there are 8x10 inch prints; uncropped work prints of custom sizes and shapes on paper no larger than approximately 12 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches; and prints mounted on 12 1/2 x 13 inch tan mat boards. Most have notes with printing instructions, with occasional captions on backs of prints or beneath prints on mat boards. Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
David Goldblatt was born November 29, 1930 in the South African city Randfontein of the province Gauteng. His photographic career began at age eighteen when he began taking pictures. With parents and grandparents who fled Lithuania around 1890 to escape from religious persecution against Jews, Goldblatt found himself simultaneously a part of white society that saw itself as superior, and an object of racial and religious oppression; this may explain in part the subjects of his images, which explore and document the complexities of a particular historical moment in South Africa. Goldblatt was drawn to the gold mines near his hometown, where he roamed as a child, and photographed these sites and the workers in black-and-white. In the 1990s he began to shoot in color to a greater extent, also including a few of his 1960s color photographs in his 2012 redesigned edition of On the Mines).
Besides contributing to many photographic exhibitions, Goldblatt has published many books and has produced films created from his still images. He has been recognized for his achievements in documenting South African life and society with the Hasselblad Award in 2006, the Cartier-Bresson Award in 2009, and the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Center for Photography.
