Schadeberg, Jürgen Richard
Birth date
18/03/1931
Death date
29/08/2020
Biography
Jürgen Schadeberg photographed Hackney during the 1970s, alongside Brixton, other places in London and Glasgow, capturing sides of these areas rarely seen at the time.
Born in Berlin he worked as an apprentice agency photographer in Hamburg and then moved to South Africa in 1950. As picture editor and chief photographer for Drum magazine, the leading South African publication reporting on black issues and figures, he covered many of the significant events in the country’s history, from the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1958 Treason Trial to the funerals following the Sharpeville massacre in which 69 protesters were killed in 1960. His photos of Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Trevor Huddleston and Ruth First became key portraits of the figures of resistance.
As his work became increasingly difficult because of arrests and harassment by the police and internal rifts at Drum, he left for London in 1964 and worked in Europe as a freelancer over the next two decades. He returned to South Africa in 1985 with his new wife, Claudia Horvath, an art historian and television producer. Together they formed the Schadeberg Movie Company, which produced both cultural and political documentaries. In 2007, and the couple moved to Valencia, in Spain.
Extract from an obituary:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/sep/17/jurgen-schadeberg-obituary [accessed 16/11/2022]
Born in Berlin he worked as an apprentice agency photographer in Hamburg and then moved to South Africa in 1950. As picture editor and chief photographer for Drum magazine, the leading South African publication reporting on black issues and figures, he covered many of the significant events in the country’s history, from the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1958 Treason Trial to the funerals following the Sharpeville massacre in which 69 protesters were killed in 1960. His photos of Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Trevor Huddleston and Ruth First became key portraits of the figures of resistance.
As his work became increasingly difficult because of arrests and harassment by the police and internal rifts at Drum, he left for London in 1964 and worked in Europe as a freelancer over the next two decades. He returned to South Africa in 1985 with his new wife, Claudia Horvath, an art historian and television producer. Together they formed the Schadeberg Movie Company, which produced both cultural and political documentaries. In 2007, and the couple moved to Valencia, in Spain.
Extract from an obituary:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/sep/17/jurgen-schadeberg-obituary [accessed 16/11/2022]