Ernest Cole

Ernest Cole (born in Transvaal, South Africa, 1940; died in New York, 1990) is best known for House of Bondage , a photobook published in 1967 that chronicles the horrors of apartheid. After fleeing South Africa in 1966, he became a "banned person," settling in New York. He was associated with Magnum Photos and received funding from the Ford Foundation to undertake a project looking at Black communities and cultures in the United States. Cole spent an extensive time in Sweden and became...See more

Ernest Cole (born in Transvaal, South Africa, 1940; died in New York, 1990) is best known for House of Bondage , a photobook published in 1967 that chronicles the horrors of apartheid. After fleeing South Africa in 1966, he became a "banned person," settling in New York. He was associated with Magnum Photos and received funding from the Ford Foundation to undertake a project looking at Black communities and cultures in the United States. Cole spent an extensive time in Sweden and became involved with the Tiofoto collective. He died at age forty-nine of cancer. In 2017, more than 60,000 of Cole's negatives--missing for more than forty years--resurfaced in Sweden. See less