PHOTO BOOK! PHOTO-BOOK! PHOTOBOOK! the South African photobook, 1945-2025

unpaginated, 4to., b/w & colour illus., hardback, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, 2026

ISBN: 9781049280738

This study of the South African photobook, which emerged during the decades of apartheid (1945–90), celebrates the dynamic role of the photobook in South African history and visual culture.

The book begins with an essay on Ernest Cole's House of Bondage (1967) and David Goldblatt's In Boksburg (1982), two early photobooks with enduring significance. It goes on to profile 43 significant photobooks published between 1956 and 2024, exploring the overlapping histories of censorship, propaganda, activism and creative experiment that characterised their production:

Hanns Reich – Portrait of Southern Africa
Ezra Eliovson – Johannesburg: The Fabulous City
Various photographers, A .D. Bensusan (ed.) – South Africa: The Land, The People
Sam Haskins – Five Girls
Albert Newall – Images of the Cape
Walter Battiss – Limpopo
Arthur Elliott – Architectural Beauty of the Old Cape as seen by Arthur Elliott
Alice Mertens – African Elegance
Peter Magubane – Soweto
Cloete Breytenbach – Savimbi’s Angola
Paul Alberts – The Borders of Apartheid
Margaret Courtney-Clarke – Ndebele
Various photographers, Omar Badsha (ed.) – South Africa: The Cordoned Heart
Various photographers, Jürgen Schadeberg (ed.) – The Finest Photos from the Old Drum
Gwen and Gabriël Fagan – Roses at the Cape of Good Hope
Paul Weinberg – Shaken Roots: The Bushmen of Namibia
Roger Ballen – Platteland: Images from Rural South Africa
Jane Alexander – PHOTO-BOOK
Graeme Williams – The Inner City: Photographs by Graeme Williams
Jillian Edelstein – Truth & Lies
Omar Badsha – Imperial Ghetto: Ways of Seeing in a South African City
Jürgen Schadeberg – The Black and White Fifties: Jürgen Schadeberg’s South Africa
Gideon Mendel – A Broken Landscape: HIV and AIDS in Africa 
Koto Bolofo – Sibusiso Mbhele and his Fish Helicopter
David Goldblatt – Particulars
Broomberg and Chanarin – Mr. Mkhize’s portrait & other stories from the new South Africa
Guy Tillim – Jo’burg
Jodi Bieber – Between Dogs and Wolves: Growing Up with South Africa
Zander Blom – The Drain of Progress
Pieter Hugo – The Hyena & Other Men
Jo Ractliffe – Terreno Ocupado
John Liebenberg – Bush of Ghosts: Life and War in Namibia 1986–90
David Southwood – Milnerton Market
Billy Monk – Billy Monk
Broomberg and Chanarin – Holy Bible
Ian Bruce Huntley – Keeping Time 1964–1974: The Photographs and Cape Town Jazz Recordings of Ian Bruce Huntley
Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse – Ponte City
Zanele Muholi – Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness
Santu Mofokeng – Stories
Lunga Ntila – Ukuzilanda
Jo Ractliffe – N1: Every Hundred Kilometres 1996/99
Lindokuhle Sobekwa – I carry Her photo with Me.

Sean O’Toole is a writer, editor and curator based in Cape Town. He has published three books, edited three volumes of essays and written extensively about art, photography and architecture for various print and online media. His most recent books are the non-fiction titles Irma Stern: African in Europe – European in Africa (2021), and The Journey: New Positions in African Photography (2020). He has adjudicated numerous awards, including the South African Pavilion for the 2026 Venice Biennale (2025), the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant (2015) and Frieze Writer’s Prize (2013). He self-publishes through the imprint Extemporary Press.