Leonford Ganyile was hopeful for the future and studied for his matriculation by the light of a paraffin lamp. He later escaped across Botswana border. South Africa. 1960s. © Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos

The exhibition also includes a newly unearthed selection of Cole’s photographs from his time in New York. After leaving South Africa in 1966, Cole found himself in the middle of the U.S. civil rights movement, capturing scenes from Harlem to Midtown Manhattan. These images, long thought lost, were discovered in 2017 in a Swedish bank vault containing 60,000 negatives.

This body of work, now exhibited publicly for the first time, offers a fascinating contrast to his South African photographs. In New York, Cole documented the Black Panther movement, the explosion of the sex industry in Times Square, interracial couples, and the burgeoning LGBTQ+ community.

By the mid-1970s, Cole’s life took a tragic downturn. Struggling with poverty and disillusionment, he became homeless, at one point sleeping in Grand Central Station. He died in 1990, just as Apartheid began to collapse.

New York City, USA. 1972. © Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos

Central Park. New York City, USA. 1971. © Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos

However, Cole’s legacy lives on. In addition to this exhibition, last year Aperture published The True America, a book that presents Cole’s long-lost U.S. photographs in New York and the American South - work as vital today as it was over half a century ago. House of Bondage was reissued in 2022 by Aperture, and director Raoul Peck’s 2024 Ernest Cole: Lost & Found won the top documentary prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and will be screened in theatres in the United Kingdom in March.

Ernest Cole promoting his book ‘House of Bondage.’ New York, USA. 1970s. © Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos

As visitors walk through the gallery, they move from the brutal realities of Apartheid to the electric social and cultural changes of 1960s New York. His lens took in the unseen, the forgotten, and the oppressed, giving their stories a chance to resonate long after he was gone.

Magnum Gallery’s exhibition provides a welcome and necessary reflection on racial injustice, state power, and resistance. For those in Paris, House of Bondage: Vintage Prints from the Ernest Cole Family Trust-Part II is a preservation of crucial history as well as a challenge for us to evaluate the present moment.

Visit Magnum Gallery at 68 Rue Léon Frot, 75011 Paris, France, or learn more on the Magnum Gallery page.

- Written by Nic Duffy · Jan 31, 2025

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