AN ACHIEVEMENT LIKENED TO THE GROUNDBREAKING WORK OF EDWARD CURTIS IN AMERICA, DUGGAN-CRONIN’S BANTU TRIBES OF SOUTH AFRICA

DUGGAN-CRONIN, Alfred Martin. The Bantu Tribes of South Africa. Reproductions of Photographic Studies. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, 1929-54. Seven volumes. Quarto, contemporary full black morocco gilt (monogrammed “H.W.R.”) rebacked to style, raised bands, top edges gilt (Volume III in original stiff gray paper covers, housed in a clamshell box).

First editions of seven (of 11) volumes in Duggan-Cronin’s photographic masterpiece, an exceptional collection of 235 (of 376) collotypes printed on heavy card stock, a record of the lives and cultures of the Bantu peoples— including the Suto-Chuana, Bechuana, Nguni, Swazi, Baca, Hlubi, Vathonga, and Vachopi tribes.

Duggan-Cronin settled in South Africa in 1897 to take a job with De Beers Consolidated Mines in Kimberly. Later, on vacation in Ireland in 1904, he bought a 10-shilling box camera, and upon returning to Africa, pursued “what he called a ‘sympathetic interest’ in the different tribal people he met working at the mines of Kimberly. They became his first subjects and his photography might have remained there, had it not been for an initial push from Dr. Maria Wilman, Director of the McGregor Museum. Wilman sent him off to photograph the Bushmen of the Langeberge in Griqualand West” and he was later supported by grants and government subsidies, which also enabled the publication of these volumes. “From 1919 to 1939 he traveled under perilous conditions, sometimes even on foot and lugging the heavy equipment of the time,” including the cumbersome glass plates that he developed in the field (Sunday Times). “By this time the typical Bantu tribal life was fast disappearing… Cronin traveled 128,000 km. and took 8,000 photographs of various tribes, including the Pobndo, Basuto and Ovambo. He also photographed the Shangaan of Moxambique, tribes in Southern Rhodesia and… Zambia” (DSAB). Intent on fully documenting a land and its people—represented here in subtle landscapes and elegant portraits of tribal chiefs, women with their children, families, hunters, herdsmen and artisans—Cronin recorded the place and date on each of his photographs and “often a bit of the family tree of the person written on the back of the print. Cronin didn’t photograph his subjects and leave, but rather developed and printed them wherever he was. It often meant working until late at night but… he was able to show the people the pictures. ‘I think the Natives have the idea I am trying to belittle them. I am not. My aim is to get a faithful photographic record of native life before… the opportunity is lost” (Sunday Times).

Cronin established South Africa’s first Bantu Museum in 1925 and later donated a collection of 750 prints to the city of Kimberly. To archivist Thierry Secretan, who in the 1990s organized a major retrospective, “Duggan-Cronin is one of the top ten photographers of the first half of the 20th century… I believe he is right up there with Edward Curtis who documented the ethnology of the North American Indians. He is easily comparable with Desirée Charney in Mexico and John Thompson in China… But he was also attentive to the beauty and elegance in the lives of lowly workers.” Included here are 235 (of 376) impressive full-page collotypes of southern African landscapes and people from the tribes of the Suto-Chuana, Bechuana, Bapedi, Southern Basotho, Nguni, Swazi, Baca, Hlubi, Xesibi, Vathonga and the Vachopi. Each volume contains introductory essays by leading scholars and annotated tissues guarding each plate. Without Volume I (Bavenda) and Volume III, Sections I-III (Ciskei, Transkei, Mpono, Mpondomise and Zulu). Hosken, 52-53.

Text and plates fine, contemporary moroccoboards with only light expert restoration. A near-fine set.