Bricklayers at Vocational Training Center, Johannesburg

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art. Visual details below describe the original material.

Bricklayers at Vocational Training Center, Johannesburg, 1948. Photographic image of two men standing behind a brick wall laying down bricks. They are holding trowels, a tool used to spread the cement between the bricks. This is at the Johannesburg Vocational Training Center. Young men are trained at the center to become tailors, builders, carpenters, and cabinet makers. The training is free. Photograph by Constance Stuart Larrabee, 1948. In 1945, Constance Stuart returned from her assignment as the first female South African war correspondent in World War II. Her reputation as a photographer grew. She maintained a photographic studio in Pretoria and Johannesburg. This series of images which she entitled "Johannesburg Black Man" depict life in downtown Johannesburg and in parts of the city, where Black South Africans lived, such as Sophiatown, Pimville, and Newclare. A second series of images focuses on Father Huddleston's work in Sophiatown. In 1948-1949, in the early days of apartheid, Stuart documented the building of the South Western townships (Soweto) and the way Africans adjusted to this new environment. There are no prints of this negative in the Constance Stuart Larrabee Collection. EEPA produced an 8x10 study print for reference purposes.

Collection

Constance Stuart Larrabee Collection

Archival grouping

Constance Stuart Larrabee Collection / Series 1: Photographs / Photographs / "Johannesburg Black Man" Series and Father Huddleson with Children, Pimville

Catalog date

1948

Recorded places

Africa; South Africa; Johannesburg (South Africa)

Cataloged creator or photographer

Larrabee, Constance Stuart

Format and extent

1 Negatives (photographic) ((silver gelatin)., b&w, 6 x 6 cm.); 1 Photographic print ((contact print)., b&w, 6 x 6 cm.)

Explore Smithsonian Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art ↗