Author:
Sean O'Toole
Design:
Ben Johnson
Managing Editor:
Sara de Beer
Assistant Editors:
Lucienne Bestall
Chloé de Villiers
Studio photography:
János Cserháti
Kyle Morland
Printing:
Tandym Print
ISBN: 978-1-0492-8073-8
© 2026 Sean O’Toole and A4 Arts Foundation
All rights reserved.
The photographers and publishers of the photographs and photobooks explored in this book retain their rights to be recognised as the authors and copyright holders of their works. These are shared courtesy of the photographers and their estates.
Photo book! Photo-book! Photobook! is the first sustained study of the South African photobook, tracing its difficult cosmopolitan emergence during the decades of apartheid (1945–90) and remarkable currency in photographic and artistic practices of the democratic era. It explores how the photobook entered the marketplace as a self-conscious, edited and designed object aimed at an urban readership. Introduced with an expansive essay on Ernest Cole's House of Bondage (1967) and David Goldblatt's In Boksburg (1982), two important photobooks with enduring significance, this book further profiles 43 significant photobooks published between 1956 and 2024. These book biographies explore the overlapping histories of censorship, propaganda, activism and creative experiment that characterised their production. Drawing on two decades of research, this richly textured account celebrates the dynamic role of the photobook in South African history and visual culture.
Including:
Ernst Cole – House of Bondage
David Goldblatt – In Boksburg
Hanns Reich – Portrait of Southern Africa
Ezra Eliovson – Johannesburg: The Fabulous City
Various photographers, A .D. Bensusan (ed.) – South Africa: The Land, The People
Sam Haskins – Five Girls
Albert Newall – Images of the Cape
Walter Battiss – Limpopo
Arthur Elliott – Architectural Beauty of the Old Cape as seen by Arthur Elliott
Alice Mertens – African Elegance
Peter Magubane – Soweto
Cloete Breytenbach – Savimbi’s Angola
Paul Alberts – The Borders of Apartheid
Margaret Courtney-Clarke – Ndebele
Various photographers, Omar Badsha (ed.) – South Africa: The Cordoned Heart
Various photographers, Jürgen Schadeberg (ed.) – The Finest Photos from the Old Drum
Gwen and Gabriël Fagan – Roses at the Cape of Good Hope
Paul Weinberg – Shaken Roots: The Bushmen of Namibia
Roger Ballen – Platteland: Images from Rural South Africa
Jane Alexander – PHOTO-BOOK
Graeme Williams – The Inner City: Photographs by Graeme Williams
Jillian Edelstei – Truth & Lies
Omar Badsha – Imperial Ghetto: Ways of Seeing in a South African City
Jürgen Schadeberg – The Black and White Fifties: Jürgen Schadeberg’s South Africa
Gideon Mendel – A Broken Landscape: HIV and AIDS in Africa
Koto Bolofo – Sibusiso Mbhele and his Fish Helicopter
David Goldblatt – Particulars
Broomberg and Chanarin – Mr. Mkhize’s portrait & other stories from the new South Africa
Guy Tillim – Jo’burg
Jodi Bieber – Between Dogs and Wolves: Growing Up with South Africa
Zander Blom – The Drain of Progress
Pieter Hugo – The Hyena & Other Men
Jo Ractliffe – Terreno Ocupado
John Liebenberg – Bush of Ghosts: Life and War in Namibia 1986–90
David Southwood – Milnerton Market
Billy Monk – Billy Monk
Broomberg and Chanarin – Holy Bible
Ian Bruce Huntley – Keeping Time 1964–1974: The Photographs and Cape Town Jazz Recordings of Ian Bruce Huntley
Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse – Ponte City
Zanele Muholi – Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness
Santu Mofokeng – Stories
Lunga Ntila – Ukuzilanda
Jo Ractliffe – N1: Every Hundred Kilometres 1996/99
Lindokuhle Sobekwa – I carry Her photo with Me
