JOHANNESBURG.- He photojournalist South African Peter Magubane, who was one of the great chroniclers of the racist violence of the apartheid system in South Africa, died today – January 1 – at the age of 91, his family announced.
“He died today peacefully, surrounded by his family,” announced Sanef, the representative organ of the South African press.
This photographer had worked in the early 90’s as the official portraitist of Nelson Mandela, after the release in 1990 of the iconic figure of the fight against apartheid and who in 1994 became the country’s first Afro-descendant president.
“South Africa loses a freedom fighter, a chronicler and photographer without equal,” said the Minister of Culture, Zizi Kodwa, on the social network X (formerly Twitter). “I fearlessly documented the injustices of apartheid,” he added.
Featured work of the photojournalist
One of Magubane’s best-known photographs was one he took in 1956, showing a white girl sitting on a bench with a sign saying reserved for Europeans and her black nanny sitting on the bench next to it.
The prestigious photojournalist had been imprisoned for periods of several years for having photographed demonstrations in front of a prison or for having disobeyed a court order prohibiting him from continuing to practice his profession.
Magubane published fifteen books, most of which were censored during the apartheid period, which lasted from 1948 to the early 1990s.
FUENTE: AFP
