Tauza - Bob Gosani’s People, by Mothobi Mutloatse and Jacqui Masiza

Tauza - Bob Gosani’s People, by Mothobi Mutloatse and Jacqui Masiza.

Tauza - Bob Gosani’s People, by Mothobi Mutloatse and Jacqui Masiza.

Tauza: Bob Gosani’s People gives the protégé of Jürgen Schadenburg and the mentor of Peter Magubane a spotlight of his own at last. The following preface is by Doc Bikitsha.

Everybody who mattered in and around black Johannesburg in the 1950s seemed to know Drum magazine photographer Robert "Bob" Gosani. At least it seemed that way. Bob was a man of few words, but his pictures told more about him and the era he recorded than his words - or mine - ever could. Drum was known for its portrayal of the life of black socialites and celebrities like singer Miriam Makeba, but more for its exposes of the brutality of apartheid in the 50s. It was an incubator for a new generation of black journalists and photographers who won fame - and certain notoriety - for their pioneering work as much as some of them did for their womanising and wild, hard-drinking ways. Bob started work at the magazine in 1952. His uncle, the journalist Henry Nxumalo, had brought him to Drum's offices in Eloff Street in downtown Johannesburg, in the hope that the magazine could employ him in some or other capacity. He started off as a messenger and was then moved to the switchboard. But it soon became clear that the 17-year-old was not suited to answering the phones. So Anthony Sampson, the editor, passed him on to Jürgen Schadeberg, a young German-born photographer who, in 1947, had sailed with his mother and British stepfather to start a new life in South Africa and had landed up at Drum.

Schadeberg took Bob on as a darkroom apprentice and he applied himself to mastering the mysteries of that cloistered space - developing and printing the work of the magazine's photographers. I met him at the beginning of 1956 and soon nicknamed him "Aerial" because, when he had a few too many drinks, his sparse, lanky frame swayed like a radio antenna in the breeze. He lived in Malay Camp, Ferreirastown, at the western end of the Johannesburg magistrates' courts, in a filthy, run-down block of flats. This was the area where he had grown up and he knew it like the back of his hand. He was streetwise and taught me many things about Johannesburg I didn't know. We spent many hours at the shebeens in this neighbourhood, and further afield. Our regular haunts were Bra Zacks', The Church or Dan Moosas. There were many others, but we preferred Moosas because he sold Korean brandy with the kick of an ostrich.

Bob was a good listener, a neat dresser, and cosmopolitan in his tastes - whether it was food, beauty or art. He loved the movies and could give comprehensive biographies of the main stars, be they James Dean, Marion Brando or dark Gable. He particularly liked the actresses Rita Hayworth, Ann Russell, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. When he was shooting my favourite models he would invite me to polish upon my amateur photography. I kept my subjects over weekends and many ended up at my home. But hey, I was not a professional like Bob! Gangsters considered journalists the plague. But they had respect for Bob - for some reason they simply wilted at his altar boy clean features. Whether it was the Americans, Spoilers, Msomi Gang, Berliners or Gestapo's, the hoodlums always treated Bob with tolerance because he was humble and down to earth.

"I am doing my job just as you are," he would say, and that never failed to disarm them. When Ezekiel "King Kong" Diamini was arrested for murder, he insisted that only Bob be allowed to take his picture. And when Diamini later drowned himself at the Leeuwkop Prison dam, Bob was there. He was like a veiled eye, unobtrusive, and did not get in the way of the curious spectator who wanted to see just as much as the photographer or reporter. And he had unbelievable split-second timing. One night we set off for Alf Herbert's African Jazz and Variety Review. Editor Tom Hopkinson's instructions had been, "just one good picture will do, Bob." I was engrossed with Rose Peterson's thighs and Miriam Makeba's twinkling toes, when Bob whispered: "I only have two frames left!" Angry at having my chorus-girl fantasies disturbed, I acidly replied, "Use your talents." In the last act, during the final dance sequence, Bob flashed once and captured Katlehong dancer Amigo somersaulting in a coon carnival dance. And that was the only picture he needed to take. The editor was delirious with pleasure at the result.

Bob was original and pragmatic. No mimicry or copycat tactics and gimmicks. Once we came upon national beauty queen Hazel Futha dowdily dressed in an apron, tattered slippers and no make-up, doing washing in a big zinc tub. Bob shot her like that and again the editors went ballistic. We regularly used to pass Josiah Madzunya, the late PAC leader, at his post on the corner of Commissioner and Von Weilligh streets, packing cardboard. Bob did not want to shoot him there, but visited him at his home in Alexandra township, where we discovered he was a dog lover. There were different breeds of hounds all over the place. And Bob's pictures of the old man were striking. He excelled as a society photographer, but he never sold himself as a wedding or birthday photographer, as others did. He took pictures for the love of art, or "the job", as he simply called his career. And his subjects co-operated with him because he was polite and not intimidating.

For the 20 years that Bob actively worked for the media, his pictures documented the social, political and economic aspects of our lives. And what shines through in his work is his love of people. Towards the 70s all good things sort of came to an end. The increasing brutality of the apartheid state resulted in the African diaspora, with people going off in different directions. In August 1972, I was tramping around what is now North West province, wearing a booze overcoat. I was a guest of Chief Male of Tlhakong Maleskraal. As I was reaching for toilet paper in the pit-toilet-square-cut pieces of The World newspaper - I saw a story that mentioned Bob Gosani was in his coffin. "Aerial" would sway no more in the breeze. Thank God his pictures survive to remind us of what we've been through.

This is an excerpt from the book: Tauza - Bob Gosani’s People, by Mothobi Mutloatse and Jacqui Masiza.

Title: Tauza - Bob Gosani’s People
Authors: Mothobi Mutloatse; Jacqui Masiza
Struik Publishers
Cape Town, South Africa 2005
ISBN 9781770071773
Hardcover, dustjacket, 26x21 cm, 116 pages, throughout bw-photos

Mutloatse, Mothobi und Masiza, Jacqui im Namibiana-Buchangebot

Tauza. Bob Gosani’s People

Tauza. Bob Gosani’s People

For anyone interested in a pictorial history of black South Africa in the 1950s, Tauza - Bob Gosani’s People is a must read.

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