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An Eloquent Picture Gallery: the South African Portraits Of AN ELOQUENT PICTURE GALLERY The South African Portrait Photographs of Gustav Theodor Fritsch, 1863 - 1865 Book and Exhibition 2008 AN ELOQUENT PICTURE GALLERY The South African portrait photographs of Gustav Theodor Fritsch, 1863–1865 Edited by Keith Dietrich and Andrew Bank CONTENTS First published by Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd in 2008 Preface Keith Dietrich 7 10 Orange Street Sunnyside Introduction Auckland Park 2092 Andrew Bank South Africa The life and photographic career of Gustav Theodor Fritsch, 1838-1927 9 +2711 628 3200 Part One www.jacana.co.za Keith Dietrich © 2008 the authors Emulsions, memories and histories 18 Part Two All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form and by any means, electronic or mechanical, including Michael Godby photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher. The art history of an anthropological image: Gustav Fritsch’s ‘Collection of photographic native portraits’, 1863–1866 126 ISBN 978-1-77009-641-7 Andrew Bank Design and layout: Keith Dietrich and Natascha Griessel From the ‘honorific’ to the ‘repressive’: Set in Optima Gustav Fritsch’s portraits of ‘The natives of South Africa’, 1863–1872 134 Printed by Creda Communications Job no. 000810 Andreas Broeckmann Gustav Fritsch: Facialising the anthropological matrix 144 See a complete list of Jacana titles at www.jacana.co.za Annette Lewerentz The racial theories and nude photography of Gustav Fritsch, 1870–1910 152 Michael Hagner Anthropology and microphotography: Gustav Fritsch and the classification of hair 162 Lize van Robbroeck The ‘problem‘ of difference and identity in the photographs of Gustav Fritsch 170 Index 176 4 5 Acknowledgements Preface Keith Dietrich This book has been the product of two periods of intense activity dur- financial support for background research, Mimi Seyffert of the J.S. In 1863, a year after completing his degree in medicine at the Uni- Of all these, it is the portraits that far outnumber the rest, and despite ing which we have accumulated personal and institutional debts. We Gericke Library at Stellenbosch University, and Claus Heydenrych, versity of Berlin, the 25-year-old Dr Gustav Theodor Fritsch embarked their anthropological intention, the quality of the portraits is quite were both warmly hosted, each for some weeks, by Dr Angelica Tunis, Marelize van Zyl and Annemi Conradie for their assistance with on an expedition to South Africa at his own expense with a view to extraordinary. curator of the Africa Department of the Museum of Ethnology, Berlin, research and translation. We are grateful to Natasha Griessel for the conducting an anthropological study of the indigenous people of Fritsch’s books and articles have never been translated into English on separate visits to Berlin some six or seven years ago. Angelica gave layout of this book. the region. Fritsch’s journey was primarily motivated by his scientific and only a few of his photographs have been published. The material, us open access to the photographic collection. Christine Stelzig, who Special thanks to Walter Köppe for translating texts from Fritsch’s interests, particularly in comparative anatomy and anthropology. At a therefore, remains relatively unknown and his research on South Africa had drawn up the index to the collection, generously shared infor- books and one of the essays from German, Linde Dietrich for assist- time when many conflicting theories were being advanced in the area has consequently not been given any exposure. The primary aim of mation, and the Director of the African Collection, Dr Peter Junge, ance with translation and hours of editorial work, and Anja Macher of race studies, he sought to reach his own conclusions by conducting this book, therefore, is to bring together a comprehensive collection kindly granted us permission to reproduce Fritsch’s southern African for translation work. We are deeply grateful to Linde and Anja for primary research in the field. His background in the natural sciences of Fritsch’s southern African photographs, particularly his portraits. portrait photographs, which form the centrepiece of this volume. We their patience, encouragement and emotional support during the long also equipped him to conduct detailed botanical, entomological, Fritsch’s travel account is by no means a dispassionate narration are also grateful to National Library of South Africa, Cape Town, for and interrupted gestation of the book. Our thanks to Russell Martin of ornithological and zoological observations. by an unbefangene Beobachter (detached observer), as he often re- permission to reproduce material from its Visual Collection. Jacana Media, who took on this book in an act of faith and patiently Fritsch’s three-year expedition through southern Africa gave fers to himself. Throughout his work the reader is reminded that the Without the financial support of the National Arts Council of South saw it through to completion in that trusting spirit. rise to two major publications, namely his Drei Jahre in Sud-Afrika. subjective experiences and observations of the writer form the main Africa, this publication would simply not have been possible. Thanks Reise-skizzen nach Notizen des Tagesbuchs zusammengestellt (Three focus of the volume. Yet his descriptions bring to life the interaction also to the Research Sub-Committee A at Stellenbosch University, Keith Dietrich and Andrew Bank Years in South Africa: Travel Sketches Compiled from Notes in a of groups and their idiosyncrasies in a period of social and cultural the National Research Foundation of South Africa, which provided September 2008 Journal, hereafter referred to as Drei Jahre), which was published in transformation and adaptation, something that is often missing in 1868, and his Die Eingeborenen Sud-Afrika’s ethnographisch und contemporary travel accounts, in which African cultures are usually anatomisch beschreiben (The Natives of South Africa Anatomically described as static and timeless. Notwithstanding the state of flux and Ethnographically Described, hereafter referred to as Die Einge- in this transitional period of colonial history, when the power and borenen), which was published in 1872. While his travel account, traditional way of life of local communities was being considerably Drei Jahre, was aimed at a broader public readership and therefore eroded and undermined, the presence of the local people is asserted written in a more popular and conversational vein, Die Eingeborenen through the medium of photography. is a scholarly publication that stemmed from his academic interest Today we recognise that he cultural diversity of South Africa in anthropology, and particularly the anatomy and customs of the constitutes one of our major national assets. This book sets out to draw indigenous inhabitants of the country. on this dynamic by uncovering the rich resources within our cultural Compared to earlier traveller-scientists who visited South Africa, heritage, particularly works of cultural and historical importance from such Peter Kolb, Anders Sparrman and William Burchell, Fritsch’s con- overseas collections, and making them accessible to the South African tribution to the anthropological literature on indigenous people from public. The 234 of Gustav Fritsch’s South African photographs repro- southern Africa was unique. He was an accomplished photographer duced in this book were retrieved from the Ethnologisches Museum, and collected a comprehensive body of photographic records on his Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (from travels that were used as source material for the illustrations in his the collection of the BGAEU) (EM-SMB). Four of his South African Drei Jahre and Die Eingeborenen, and for the etchings in his Atlas, portraits have also been sourced from the National Library of South which accompanied Die Eingeborenen. The photographs includes Africa Visual Collection, Cape Town Campus (NLSA), and one has portrait and full-length studies of individuals, images of groups of been sourced from the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology National Arts Council of South Africa people, scenes of African and colonial settlements, and landscapes. and Prehistory (BGAEU). Introduction The life and photographic career of Gustav Theodor Fritsch, 1838–1927 Andrew Bank We know frustratingly little about the private life of Gustav Theodor illustration in his travelogue, Drei Jahre in Süd-Afrika, published in Fritsch. For a man who came to play a prominent role as a scientist Breslau in 1868, two years after his return from his three-year-long and public intellectual in Berlin for some fifty years – from the 1860s African travels. This is one of a few illustrations in which Fritsch the through to the 1910s – he left remarkably few remains with which to travelling scientist, or ‘impartial observer’ as he described himself in piece together any coherent story about his personal development or the Preface, is inserted into the foreign landscape to which he intro- inner life. This is as true of visual as of documentary records. Ironi- duced his popular German readership. The image was reworked from cally, while we know a considerable amount about the photographic a photograph, possibly one taken in the field by an assistant. It shows ideas of Fritsch and about the many hundreds of photographs that he the author (who is not mentioned in the caption) examining a protea took during his career, there are just a few photographic images in specimen plucked from one of the flowering bushes that feature in which he himself appears. the foreground of this landscape. The angle from which we see Table The only surviving portraits of Fritsch are two cabinet-size prints Mountain in the background suggests that the photograph on which that feature in one of the 39 albums in the Africa Department of the this illustration was based was taken on the lower slopes of Lion’s Museum of Ethnology in Berlin. This album (no. 21) was compiled by Head, most likely in the late months of 1863 shortly after Fritsch’s Richard Neuhauss, then photographic archivist of the Berlin Society arrival in Cape Town.
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