malo as journalist, Anthony Sampson as editor,
and a secretary.
Drumexposed exploitative labor conditions, rac-
ism, and deteriorating social conditions. It tracked
political resistance to Apartheid and the emergence
of new leaders, including Nelson Mandela. It lion-
ized black artistic expression, featuring musicians,
writers, and actors. It put black beauties on its
covers, proclaiming that ‘‘black was beautiful’’
despite the social denigration that blacks suffered
under Apartheid. It covered black sport and lei-
sure, including the pulsating nightlife of the dance
halls and shebeens—speakeasies in the black
townships where liquor was served to multiracial
gatherings in contravention of the law.Drumpic-
tured and described black urban life in a unique
way, both popular and incisive, that turned it into
a runaway success.
Schadeberg’s work for Drum crosses photo-
graphic categories, including social documentary,
glamour and fashion, portraiture, and genre images
of everyday life that are themselves historic docu-
ments. Schadeberg’s training in photography is evi-
dent in his technical proficiency and attention to
formal issues of composition and lighting, but it is
his sensitivity to the expressive power of images—
their gestalt impact—that shines through his subject
matter. Furthermore, the context of his images tes-
tifies to his humanism in a society becoming in-
creasingly dehumanized. Schadeberg was arrested
frequently, as were otherDrumstaff members.
By late 1953,Drumhad spawned spin-offs, edi-
tions for Nigeria (1953), Ghana (1954), East Africa
(1957), Central Africa (1966), and even for North
America and the West Indies, makingDrumavital
organ for the representation of black life and expres-
sion within twentieth-century photography. Drum
chronicled the era during which most African coun-
tries gained their freedom, and Africans and people
of African descent demanded their rights and as-
serted their cultures. Meanwhile, South Africa was
moving in the opposite direction, toward ever-greater
repression rather than freedom and equality for
blacks. Racial conflict in the United States during
the 1950s and 1960s invited mutual comparisons with
South Africa. African-American experience and cul-
ture inspired many black South Africans, not only in
resistance but also in culture. American jazz influ-
enced local musicians, and vice versa. Among the
new South African stars who established interna-
tional careers were Miriam Makeba and Hugh Mase-
kela, whom Ju ̈rgen Schadeberg photographed as he
received a trumpet sent by Louis Armstrong. Amer-
ican fashions and lifestyles were echoed in clothing
and big cars. A powerful township gang even called
itself the ‘‘Americans,’’ and gangsters adopted such
monikers as ‘‘Boston’’ and ‘‘Homicide Hank.’’
As Drum blossomed, Schadeberg became em-
broiled in picture editing, teaching photography,
and enlargingDrum’s photographic department. He
trained Nxumalo’s nephew, Bob Gosani, who
became an outstanding Drum photographer. In
1955, Peter Magubane joinedDrumas a driver and
messenger, but soon became a photographer. Among
the other black photographers who worked atDrum
were Alf Kumalo, Victor Xashimba, Gopal Naran-
samy, and Ernest Cole, who was later exiled to the
United States and is the subject of a documentary
film made by Schadeberg and his wife, Claudia. The
British-born photographer Ian Berry, later a member
of Magnum Photos, also worked withDrum.
Schadeberg left South Africa in 1964, shortly
beforeDrumwas banned. By this time, Apartheid
repression had bitten deep, and Schadeberg had
recorded the demolition of the black township of
Sophiatown, the funeral for the victims of the
Sharpeville Massacre during which police shot dead
67 demonstrators, the treason trial of Nelson Man-
dela and other leaders, and other harrowing events.
Schadeberg became editor ofCreative Camerain
London and shot assignments forTime, The Sun-
day Times, andDie Zeit (Hamburg). During the
1970s and 1980s, he taught photography in New
York, London, and Hamburg; continued his doc-
umentary photography; studied painting; and
curated photographic exhibitions, including a proj-
ect for the opening of the New National Theatre in
London,The Quality of Life.
Schadeberg returned to live in South Africa in
1985, when Apartheid repression was at a peak.
Schadeberg, steeped in the humanist spirit of the
1950s, was disillusioned by the trends in documen-
tary photography toward hard news and graphic
violence. Instead, he focused on capturing everyday
life and social changes, and produced numerous
films with Claudia Schadeberg. In photography,
he began to work in color and make digital prints,
creating works of rich color and painterly sensibil-
ity, and produced a body of portraits.
One of the momentous changes that Schadeberg
recorded was the elevation of Nelson Mandela as
president of South Africa after 27 years of im-
prisonment. In 1994, Schadeberg photographed
Mandela gazing through the bars of his former
prison cell. Forty-two years separated this photo-
graph from a historic image that Schadeberg shot
of Mandela as an emerging leader. This gives some
measure of Schadeberg’s extraordinary career,
spanning more than 50 years.
GaryVanWykSCHADEBERG, JU ̈RGEN