The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

speaking tour of the United States. 50 In that setting, it acquired the incongruous meaning
of a portrait of a political leader with a significant political biography in spite of hailing
from a time of distinct photographic aversion and biographic ambivalence on Tabata’s
part. I have no doubt that this image had been cared for privately by Dora Taylor for a
long time before she chose to release it for the public purposes of the ADC US tour
because of a shortage of suitable Tabata portraits. 51 This is also perhaps the reason why
the image took on new life in the private world of Tabata and Jane Gool in Lusaka and
Harare, where the original signed print later acquired a makeshift copper‐coloured
cardboard frame, held together by sellotape (Figure 6). In spite of its fleeting entry into
the public domain in the mid‐1960s, the Fischer image had not been created as a portrait
of a political leader. And it was not intended for use in the public to project an image of
a leader.
Fischer’s photographic image of Tabata had a distinct performative quality. Dressed in a
jacket and open‐neck shirt, but with horn‐rimmed spectacles prominent, almost as a
prop, Tabata was photographed in full lighting, gazing into the distance, and cutting a
stylised image of the young, modern, male, urban intellectual. Tabata showed rare
comfort at being photographed, undoubtedly because the photographic occasion
occurred in the setting of the art photography studio, and the photographer was an
artist and professional photographer. The studio was a space of identity performance,
and in this image, Tabata can be read as celebrating and affirming his urban modernity,
perhaps marking his difference from rural lives.
50 ‘I.B. Tabata’; ‘I.B Tabata’ (slightly abbreviated, and marked ‘labor donated’, pamphlets issued by the
Alexander Defense Committee, n.d. (1965), Alexander Defense Committee Records, 1962‐1971, SML
Microform, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University. It was also used as a portrait for the
republication in the ISR (International Socialist Review?) of Tabata’s Presidential Address to the first
conference of APDUSA in April 1962. This was facilitated by Dora Taylor who had liaised with Tom
Kerry (referred to cryptically as ‘Tom K’ by Dora Taylor in her diary entries). See Dora Taylor, Pocket
Diary, entries for 24, 28 and 29 April 1965, and 19 June 1965, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
51 With her temporary relocation to Toronto, where J.G. Taylor had an academic appointment, Dora
was forced to write back to her daughter, Doreen Muskett, for photographs of Tabata (which must
have been left behind in England). The 1942 Taylor photograph was what Doreen sent. See Dora
Taylor, Pocket Diary, entries for 12 & 30 April 1965, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
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