Juergen Schadeberg

In the early 1950s, Berlin-born photographer Jürgen Schadeberg captured Nelson Mandela, (then a young attorney), singer Miriam Makeba and the nightlife in Sophiatown, a dynamic black neighborhood in Johannesburg. Revealing the poverty endemic to the majority of South Africa's black population became Schadeberg's chief focus. He arrived there in 1950, at the advent of apartheid, to work for Drum, the first magazine for black readers. In 1964, when Drum was banned, Schadeberg left South Africa for Europe and the United States, creating a body of portraits unique in their ability to cut across race, class and social standing. In 1994, Schadeberg created an iconic image of Nelson Mandela, by then the first black President of South Africa, standing at the window of his former prison cell on Robben Island, where he had been detained on charges of conspiracy from 1964-1982. Schadeberg, whose work has been highly influential to younger artists, now lives and works near Paris. This substantial volume collects 250 images from across his career.