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BIOGRAPHY
Bobson Studio was founded by Bobson Sukhdeo Mohanlall (1928 – 2003) in Durban, South Africa, in 1961. The studio catered mainly to a Zulu clientele, who posed in their own beadwork and costumes for formal portraits that were also made into postcards, which could be sent to distant relatives and friends. Bobson used two cameras during this time, a Yashica Matt 120mm and a Rolliflex 120mm. The studio became the city’s most famous portrait studio, and attracted clients countrywide. Many of the clients belonged to the Ndwedwe people, a subgroup of the Zulu who live in the region known as Valley of a Thousand Hills, between Durban and Pietermaritzburg, the major cities of the KwaZulu-Natal province. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Bobson Studio began to offer color portraits, which best captured the vivid dress of the clients.
Today, the art historical value of Bobson’s archive has become apparent. In the field of African studio photography, a topic of growing interest, Bobson is South Africa’s finest example, and is apparently the earliest African studio archive in color. The archive also forms a unique documentary record of the Ndwedwe beadwork in use at the time, and how African “tradition” coexisted with international, urban style. Such studios became a sites of affirmative self representation in the context of an oppressive Apartheid era.
Axis Gallery has represented and exhibited the Bobson Studio archive since 2000, and since Sukdeo Bobson Mohanlall’s tragic death in 2003, is the exclusive international representative of the estate.
Bobson Sukhdeo Mohanlall’s photographs have been exhibited internationally, and featured in, “Dark Room: South African Photography and New Media 1950-Present”, Aug-Oct. 2010, Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, Virginia, Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, Jan. 23, 2011. In 2015 they were featured in “The Other Camera”, at the University of Michigan Institute for Humanities Gallery, Anne Arbor, Michigan, and “Contemporary Art/South Africa” at Yale University Art Gallery and in “Made Visible: Contemporary South African Fashion & Identity”. at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in 2019.
Mohanlall’s work is in several private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and The Newark Museum, New Jersey and The Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove, United Kingdom.
CV
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2019
Made Visible: Contemporary South African Fashion & Identity. Museum of Fine Arts Boston. February 2 – May 14, 2019
2015
The Other Camera Origins Museum, Commune. 1, Cape Town, South Africa
The Other CameraOrigins Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
2014
The Other CameraThe Ethnographic Museum, Stockholm, Sweden
The Other CameraExposures, Halmstad, Sweden
The Other CameraExposures, Saltsjöbaden, Sweden
Contemporary Art/South Africa at Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
Bobson Sukhdeo Mohanlall, Axis Gallery, New York
The Other Camera University of Michigan Institute for Humanities Gallery, Anne Arbor, Michigan
2011
Darkroom: Photography and New Media in South Africa since 1950
Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography
Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Tamar Garb. Steidl, 2011
2010
Darkroom: Photography and New Media in South Africa since 1950. Virginia Museum of Arts, Richmond, VA
Rankin in South Africa, BBC film on photography in South Africa
2004
In the Studio: Portrait Photographs from Africa, Newark Museum, NJ
2001
“Zulu,” Axis Gallery, New York
Bobson Portraits, Milano Libri, Milan, Italy
2000
Bobson Portraits, Centro Culturale Paggeria del Commune di Sassuolo, Sassuolo, Italy
1999
Towards-Transit: new visual languages in South Africa.Serge Ziegler Galerie, Zürich
Pro Helvetia, Arts Council of Switzerland
Bobson Portraits, South African Embassy, Accra, Ghana
1998
eye Africa: African photographs 1887-1997, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
1998
L’Afrique Pare Elle-Même, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris France
Studio Portraits, Bobson Studio, AREA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Studio Portraits, Bobson Studio, NSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
The Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove, UK
Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa \
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
’The Other Camera’ at Commune. 1: A Participatory view of Africa”. By Jessica Hunkin
Between 10and5, The creative showcase. July 17 2015
“Ordinary people celebrated in street photographers’ art.” Robyn Sassen. Mail & Guardian. February 25, 2015
“Finding Hidden Treasures in a strongroom of dreams.” Tymon Smith. Sunday Times, February 22, 2015
Contemporary Art/South Africa. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut. 2014
The Other Camera. University of Michigan, Institute for the Humanities, [2014]
Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography. Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Tamar Garb. Steidl, 2011
Darkroom: Photography and New Media in South Africa since 1950. Virginia Museum of Arts, Richmond, VA, 2010
Artisti A Castagnoli. Biennale Internationale d’Arte. 2007
“Towards-Transit: new visual languages in South Africa”.Serge Ziegler Galerie, Zürich
Pro Helvetia, Arts Council of Switzerland. 1999