Header image: ‘Which black train to take is matter of guesswork. They have no destination signs and no announcement of arrivals is made, Head car may be numbered to show its route, but number is often wrong. In confusion passengers sometimes jump across track, and some are killed by express trains.’ Photography, Ernest Cole. Caption as it appears in ‘House of Bondage’.
In 2024 the black South African Photographer, Ernest Cole, was celebrated posthumously with 2 exhibitions of his work which ran concurrently at London’s Autograph gallery and The Photographers Gallery.
This year the release of the documentary film Ernest Cole:Lost and Found, by the Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck, paid homage to Cole’s work in a compelling and moving documentary.
Ernest Levi Tsoloane Cole was born on the 21st March 1940 in a Pretoria township, South Africa. Eight years later, the Apartheid state was formally established following a non-democratic election in which only white people could vote. Precisely 20 years after Ernest Cole’s birth, the Sharpeville Massacre took place.
Cole took up photography at an early age when he was given a camera as a gift by a priest. At this stage, the impact of Apartheid’s brutal system of racist oppression of all South Africans, except the white population, had taken effect.
‘After a few drinks, young mother begins to sag’, Ernest Cole. Caption as it appears in ‘House of Bondage’.
The Bantu Education Act was implemented in 1953 resulting in hugely inferior educational provision and facilities for the indigenous majority black population.
Cole was unwilling to continue his studies under this discriminatory system and instead decided to study by correspondence course. Meanwhile, he had been developing his passion for photography and at the age of only 18 gained employment on South Africa’s popular Drum magazine when its picture editor Jürgen Schadeberg gave him a job as an assistant.
Undated/uncaptioned photograph by Ernest Cole. As it appears in ‘House of Bondage’.
Cole developed an incredible eye for bringing into focus the realities of the lives of oppressed black South Africans. White people also feature in his work but in such a way as to offer a visual critique of the abhorrent and dehumanising system of Apartheid and the privileges they, as descendants of colonisers, enjoyed.
Undated/uncaptioned photograph by Ernest Cole. Magnum Photos.
In 1966, Cole made the painful decision to leave his country and escape from Apartheid’s racist restrictions. He made his way to America by claiming to be ‘Coloured’ not Black and secretly packed his photographic prints in his luggage. He hoped to be able to work more freely on his political art and support himself financially.
Of course the US was by no means the land of the free, yet at only 26 years of age Cole showed incredible fortitude in pursuing his craft. Soon after arriving in New York, he approached the leading photo agency Magnum to show them his work. His unique talent caught the attention of the publisher Random House and led to the
1967 publication of his book House of Bondage. In this first collection of his work, the pain and hardship experienced by oppressed South Africans as well as the interplay and nuances of race, class and gender under Apartheid are central. Not surprisingly, the book was banned in South Africa. Nevertheless, writers and other photographers who knew of Cole or had worked with him in SA learnt of its publication and it was circulated amongst the political exiles in London from the late 1960s onwards.
House of Bondage, Ernest Cole, Ridge Press/ Allen Lane Penguin Press, 1968.
Anti-Apartheid Legacy Collection.
Whilst living in New York City, Cole took photographs on its bustling streets that reflected the fashion styles, attitudes and divisions amongst its inhabitants as well as the relentless energy of ‘the city that never sleeps’. These photos were the focus of the 2024 exhibition at Autograph Gallery whilst the Photographers Gallery ran a major retrospective of Cole’s work.
Life was not easy for Cole in America and he missed home terribly. He later moved to Sweden where he started to also use film as a medium in which to work but still struggled financially.
He later returned to New York and continued taking photographs. Sadly, he died from pancreatic cancer in 1990 only a few days after Nelson Mandela’s release from jail. He was only 49 years old.
The title of Raoul Peck’s film Ernest Cole:Lost and Found refers to Cole’s negatives which, for decades, were considered to be lost. However in an unexpected turn of events, a collection of around 60,000 negatives was found in a bank vault in Stockholm.
In 2018, this precious discovery was handed over to Cole’s family, who had founded The Ernest Cole Family Trust.
The Hasselblad Foundation which had previously published a book of Cole’s photographs and organised a touring exhibition of his work in 2010, has been involved in an ongoing legal battle with Cole’s family as to who owns the rights to the work that the foundation published and exhibited. The foundation did hand over some of Cole’s prints to his family but it is regrettable that there remains this complex dispute.
Cole’s photographs are now considered to be of significant financial value. However, the fact that so much of his work has been found and will be appreciated around the world is bittersweet; he did not benefit from it financially and died before he could return to South Africa. This makes his work all the more poignant.
Raoul Peck’s film is thoughtful, engaging and sensitive. He used the voice of actor LaKeith Stanfield to provide a measured and affecting narration based on Cole’s own writings.This brings a kind of poetic intimacy to the film that works well with the realism of the photographs and in doing so puts Cole in the frame.
Cole’s book House of Bondage was reissued in 2022 in NYC by the publisher Aperture. It included a new preface by Mongane Wally Serote, the acclaimed black South African poet.
Inside cover of ‘House of Bondage’ by Ernest Cole, with additional text by Thomas Flaherty. Anti-Apartheid Legacy Collection.
The Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre was recently given a 1968 copy of House of Bondage by South African elder, Shirley Hepple. This book will be part of a selection of titles, available upon request, for visitors to be able to explore.
by Nadia Joseph, August 2025
