The first publication of Ernest Cole’s photographs depicting Black lives in the United States during the turbulent and eventful late 1960s and early ’70s After the publication of his landmark 1967 book House of Bondage on the horrors of apartheid, Ernest Cole moved to New York and received a grant from the Ford Foundation to document Black communities in cities and rural areas of the United States. He released very few images from this body of work while he was alive. Thought to be lost entirely, the negatives of Cole’s American pictures resurfaced in Sweden in 2017. Ernest Cole photographed extensively in New York City, documenting the lively community of Harlem, including a thrilling series of color photographs, as he turned his talent to street photography across Manhattan. In 1968 Cole traveled to Chicago, Cleveland, Memphis, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, as well as rural areas of the South, capturing the mood of different Black communities in the months leading up to and just after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The pictures both reflect a newfound hope and freedom that Cole felt in America, and an incisive eye for inequality as he became increasingly disillusioned by the systemic racism he witnessed. This treasure trove of rediscovered work provides an important window into American society and redefines Cole’s oeuvre, presenting a fuller picture of the life and work of a man who fled South Africa and exposed life under apartheid to the world.

A panorama of the career of South African photographer David Goldblatt, elucidating his artistic commitments, networks, and influence.

David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive coincides with a major traveling retrospective of the renowned South African photographer’s work. From vintage handprints of the artist’s black-and-white photography, taken between the 1950s and the 1990s, to his post-apartheid, large-format, color work, photographs in the volume are approached thematically—under headers such as “Assembly,” “Disbelief,” “Dialogues,” and “Extraction”—to draw out the artist’s core interests in working-class people, the landscape, and the built environment. Objects from Goldblatt’s (1930–2018) personal archive are also included.

In an effort to create a more inclusive dialogue around Goldblatt’s work, the catalogue features images and texts by contemporary photographers and scholars, many of whom were mentored by Goldblatt, including Zanele Muholi and Sabelo Mlangeni. Some write on Goldblatt’s photographs, while others discuss his influence on their own work. Goldblatt devoted his life to documenting his country and its people. Known for his nuanced portrayals of life under apartheid, he covered a wide range of subjects, all of them intimately connected to South African history and politics.

The wide-ranging voices in this catalogue foster a broad frame of reference for his work, thus countering a frequent misunderstanding of apartheid as a situation peculiar to South Africa.