Sam Nhlengethwa
Humiliation

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Images(3)

Artist Sam Nhlengethwa(South African, born 1955)South African, born 1955

CultureSouth African

Titles

Humiliation
from the series Glimpses of the Fifties and Sixties

Date2003

MediumPhotolithograph

DimensionsImage: 7 15/16 × 11 1/4 in. (20.2 × 28.5 cm)
Sheet: 19 1/2 × 15 1/16 in. (49.5 × 38.3 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Joan Morgenstern in honor of Yasufumi Nakamori

Object number2011.1015

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionIn his series Glimpses of the Fifties and Sixties,
Sam Nhlengethwa critically comments on the
institutionalized racism and discrimination of apartheid in his native South Africa. To
create these montages, Nhlengethwa noted, “I sourced material from the Drum magazine archives
and I also looked through my own
family albums. The use of my own archive
was important because I wanted to reflect an intimacy and a familiarity that would make the images
accessible.” The work blends
together the personal and public to
create searing, personal images of deep injustice.
Provenance[Florence Lynch Gallery, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 2011.
Exhibition History"Utopia/ Dystopia: Construction and Destruction in Photography and Collage," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 11–June 10, 2012.

"Through an African Lens: Sub-Saharan Photography from the Museum's Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 27–November 8, 2020.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Signed in pencil, recto, below image left to right: T.P. “HUMILIATION” SAM NHLENGETHWA '03
Embossed, recto, lower right corner: [symbol for The Artists' Press, South Africa]
Inscribed in pencil, verso, lower left: TAP 03-29

Signed and dated below image lower right in pencil: SAM NHLENGETHWA '03

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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