Fonds A3373 - Ronald Ngilima Photographs

Identity area

Reference code

ZA HPRA A3373

Title

Ronald Ngilima Photographs

Date(s)

  • 1940s-1960s (Creation)

Level of description

Fonds

Extent and medium

Approximately 5600 negatives; personal papers; publications

Context area

Name of creator

(1914-1960)

Biographical history

Born in 1914, Ronald Majongwa Ngilima grew up in the countryside near Cofimvaba (St.Marks, Eastern Cape), as a sheepherder. In 1930, the young 16-year-old moved to Johannesburg, and found work as a messenger-boy at the post office of Modder B mines. He then switched to working for the tobacco company Leonard Dinglers in the industrial area of Boksburg. In 1934, Ronald married Sarah Nomatisana Msekelwa, with whom he was to have nine children. From the Johnson farm plots, the young family moved to Benoni Old Location (‘Etwatwa’) in the mid-1940s. In 1952, they were able to obtain a ‘sub-economic house’ in the newly built township called Wattville. His daughter Doreen Ngilima and her family live in this house up to today.
In his spare time Ronald became as a self-taught photographer, taking portraits to supplement his income. He used his bathroom as a darkroom, washing negatives and making prints, including for other photographers in the area. Over the years, Ngilima accumulated the numerous negatives in small Kodak boxes. When Ronald died tragically on the 13th of March 1960 in a mysteriously ambush, his son and assistant Torrance Ngilima took over the trade for another few years, adding his own negatives to the collection. Torrance continued to photograph for another five years.
(from the Ronald Ngilima Photographic Archive)

Archival history

The collection contains the photographic archive of Ronald Ngilima, dating from the late 1940s until he died tragically on the 13 March 1960. After his death his son Torrance continued photographing and adding his negatives to the collection for another 5 years. Torrance died on the 19 of April 1998.
In 1999, Ronald's grandson Farrell Ngilima, re-discovered the negatives which had been kept safely by Ronald's wife Sarah. He decided to create a foundation in order to promote his grandfather's legacy for the benefit of the Wattville community and to guarantee the long-term preservation of the original negatives. In 2012 the Ronald Ngilima Photographic Archive Foundation was finally conceptualised by Farrell Ngilima and Sophie Feyder.
Farrell Ngilima was joined by Sophie Feyder in 2008, who was at the time a visual researcher and PhD student from the Leiden University in the Netherlands. From 2010 the Ngilima collection became the object of her PhD study as part of a larger research project from the Leiden University and has been the subject of published journal articles.

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Content and structure area

Scope and content

The images in the Ronald Ngilima collection consist of commissioned portraits and documentary photographs of the communities in the Benoni Old Location and the Wattville township. They depict people from the various Coloured, Indian and Black communities in their homes, on the streets and in the studio that Ronald Ngilima had set up in his living room.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling

Accruals

System of arrangement

The individual images in the collection have remained largely undescribed, with the negatives labelled A-Y and numbered RN001-RN5671.

Conditions of access and use area

Conditions governing access

The digital images are available to researchers in the Reading Room of Historical Papers only.

Conditions governing reproduction

Copyright Ronald Ngilima. Permission must be obtained from Farrell Ngilima.

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Physical characteristics and technical requirements

The negatives were scanned at the Centre for Curating the Archives at the University of Cape Town, after which they were deposited at the Historical Papers Research Archive. All negatives are stored in archival photo pockets. There are no photographic prints of any of the negatives.

Finding aids

Uploaded finding aid

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Publication note

Sophie Feyder published on the Ngilima collection of photographs:
Sophie Feyder (2014) a Space of One's Own: Studioo Photography and the Making of Black urban Femininities in the 1950s East Rand, Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies, 15:2-3, 227-254, DOI: 10.1080/17533171.2014.925645
To link to this article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17533171.2014.925645

Notes area

Note

The description of the box content makes use of a common terminology used in the racially divided South African context.

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