Exhibited

A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, Picture Theory: An Interaction with the Work of David Goldblatt, October 2018 to January 2019, another example from the edition illustrated on the inside front cover of the exhibition catalogue.

Notes

This image is a portrait of South African photographer David Goldblatt, who worked for more than six decades as a social cartographer, mapping South African life through photography.

Goldblatt himself believed in the power of portraiture, seeking "to convey as strongly as I can the presence of the subject, the person.^”1 The image represents a rare and honest account of the photographer who spent most of his career behind the lens, documenting people, places and things.

Rendered in the traditional format of documentary photography, the image maintains a square focus on Goldblatt's face, creating a sense of clarity and directness that mirrors the very approach Goldblatt championed in his work. In this portrait, Southwood reflects the master photographer himself through the directness of gaze, the uncompromising clarity, and the palpable presence that Goldblatt strived to capture in his subjects.

The portrait was a key part of the project Picture Theory: An Interaction with the Work of David Goldblatt , which took place at the A4 Arts Foundation in Cape Town. The project delved into the impetus behind Goldblatt's work, the pressures that shaped it, and the nuances of his photographic processes. It also explored what was missing from his body of work, prompting questions about the photographs he hadn't taken and his unfulfilled aspirations.

^1. Lisa Girault quoted in Goldblatt: A Documentary, A4 Arts Foundation, online https://www.a4arts.org/projects/recV0jcOkZ7XFtRTn-goldblatt-a-documentary, accessed 18 August 2025.

Provenance

Gifted by the artist to the current owner.