early silver gelatin, selenium toned hand print signed, dated 9/74 and inscribed with the title on the reverse. Accompanied by the book for which this photograph was the cover illustration (Simon, B. (1974). Joburg, Sis! Johannesburg: Bateleur Press.)

Artwork date: 1974
Literature: Simon, B. (1974). Joburg, Sis! Johannesburg: Bateleur Press, another example from this edition illustrated on dust jacket.

(2)

image size: 18 x 12 cm

Notes:

In his early photographs and books, David Goldblatt’s influences and references were more often literary than photographic. In figures, such as Lionel Abrahams, Athol Fugard, Nadine Gordimer and Barney Simon, he not only found writing that mirrored his photographic sentiments, but in their personal support of his work, Goldblatt found a critical community that not only engaged his photography but also even contributed the essays that accompanied the publication of his photographs in magazine and book form. This relatively small literary world was Goldblatt’s initial intellectual reference, and where he found support for his early photographic critiques of life under apartheid.When Goldblatt produced a full mock-up of what became his second book, Some Afrikaners Photographed, he based it on a design template provided by fellow photographer Sam Haskins. His intention was to find a publisher for the book in London or New York. When he returned to South Africa, having failed in this task, Goldblatt showed the book dummy to Barney Simon, the recently returned theatre director who went on to become a founder of The Market Theatre. Simon has a personal interest in Goldblatt’s work, but also often used the photographer’s images in the research and preparation of actors for his theatre productions. Simon’s response to the dummy provided Goldblatt with a critical opportunity to reflect on the shortcomings of the design and layout of the book dummy. According to Goldblatt:He questioned whether the meanings and relationships set up between my pictures by Sam’s interlocking layouts were what I intended them to have. Very reluctantly I had to admit that the photographs were ‘speaking’ to each other in ways that I had never intended. So I made a completely new dummy at the opposite extreme of design: one picture to a spread, lots of white space and very carefully considered short captions. And that’s how I published it.This account is testament to the character of the relationship between the two men, and provides some perspective on an otherwise unassuming photograph taken by Goldblatt of Simon’s house in Kensington, Johannesburg in 1974, one year before the publication of Some Afrikaners Photographed. The image, while never featured in any of Goldblatt’s major books, was used on the cover of Simon’s own collection of writing, Joburg, Sis!

Rory Bester

Sources:

Simon, Barney (1974). Joburg, Sis! Johannesburg: Bateleur Press, illustration dustjack cover.

[1] See Rory Bester (2015). Writing Photography’s Archive of Apartheid: Theories and Methods for Understanding the Work of David Goldblatt. PhD Thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, p 112.