January 11, 2024
Aperture Presents Ernest Cole: The True America
Newly Recovered Photographs by Renowned South African Artist Document Black Communities in the Late 1960s and ’70s across the United States.
New York, January 11, 2024—Aperture presents Ernest Cole: The True America, the first publication of photographs taken in the United States by renowned South African photographer Ernest Cole. With more than 260 previously unpublished images documenting New York, other major cities, and the rural South amid the civil rights movement in the late 1960s and early ’70s, this compilation redefines the scope of Cole’s work and shares a new window into American society through his incisive eye.
After fleeing South Africa to publish his landmark book House of Bondage in 1967 (reissued by Aperture in 2022) on the horrors of apartheid, Ernest Cole became a “banned person” and resettled in New York. He photographed the city’s streets extensively, chronicling daily life in Harlem and around Manhattan. In 1968 he traveled across the country to cities including Chicago, Cleveland, Memphis, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, as well as to rural areas of the South, capturing the activism and emotional tenor in the months leading up to and just after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The True America reflects the contradictions between a newfound hope and freedom that Cole experienced in the United States alongside the systemic racism and injustice he witnessed. Cole released very few images from this body of work during his lifetime. Thought to be lost entirely, the negatives of these pictures of resurfaced in Sweden in 2017 and were returned to the Ernest Cole Family Trust. The first publication sharing this work, The True America features a preface by film director Raoul Peck, whose documentary on Cole will soon be released, and texts by journalist James Sanders and scholar Leslie M. Wilson.
Ernest Cole: The True America is edited by Denise Wolff, Senior Books Editor, Aperture, with former assistant editor Lanah Swindle, and is available at aperture.org/books.
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 sixty thousand of his negatives—missing for more than forty years—resurfaced in Sweden. In 2022, House of Bondage was reissued by Aperture.
RAOUL PECK (preface) is an award-winning director whose documentaries, feature films, and television series touch upon colonialism, racism, and social inequalities. He is currently working on a documentary about Ernest Cole.
JAMES SANDERS (essay) is a journalist and scholar specializing in South African history and politics.
Ernest Cole: The True America is supported by a gift from Michael Hoeh
About Aperture
Aperture is a nonprofit publisher that leads conversations around photography worldwide. From its base in New York, Aperture connects global audiences and supports artists through its acclaimed quarterly magazine, books, exhibitions, digital platforms, public programs, limited-edition prints, and awards. Established in 1952 to advance “creative thinking, significantly expressed in words and photographs, Aperture champions photography’s vital role in nurturing curiosity and encouraging a more just, tolerant society.
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Press Contact
Lauren Van Natten, +1 212.946.7151, publicity@aperture.org