The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

Bainskloof, Beaufort West, Hanover and Colesburg, to attend the AAC annual
conference. Tabata had undertaken the journey by car with Goolam and Jane Gool, and
was accompanied for part of the way by ‘Edna’ (possibly a young Edna Wilcox). The
photograph depicted an extremely uneasy‐looking Tabata, without his spectacles,
without his jacket, squinting against the sun, drying his hands, probably early in the
morning or late in the afternoon, at a makeshift roadside camp. With a very faint smile,
it is clear that Tabata had been caught off guard, without the attire of his public self, and
was uncomfortable about being singled out by the camera. Indeed, he was a rather
reluctant photographic subject (Figure 4). Tabata’s aversion to photography was
mirrored in perhaps one of the few photographs which Tabata himself might ever have
taken, of the group at the dishevelled campsite, either packing or unpacking, without a
single person being identifiable (Figure 5). All faces were almost symbolically hidden in
an act of visual representation by Tabata that concealed far more than it revealed. This
was indeed photographic aversion on Tabata’s part, both as subject and photographer.
The only photographs of Tabata from the 1940s that entered the public domain were
those taken in 1941 and 1942 by professional art photographer, Anne Fischer. In 1946,
when faced with Mnguni’s request, it is possible that Tabata may have had prints of
these in his possession. It is not clear why they were created, but Fischer had
connections with left‐wing circles in Cape Town, and in the early 1940s, also spent time
taking photographs in rural Transkei, as a field art photographer. It may have been that
Tabata needed a portrait for personal reasons or for some purpose of official
identification. But it might also have been the case that in posing in Fischer’s studio in
1942, Tabata also met her needs for a suitable photographic model, possibly
inadvertently satisfying her interest in ‘native photographic subjects’. 49
Fischer’s 1942 image was used in 1965 by the Alexander Defense Committee for two
cryptic biographic pamphlets, which accompanied publicity material for Tabata’s
49 Tina Smith and Ciraj Rassool, ‘History in Photographs at the District Six Museum’, pp 142‐43.
344