During group medical examination, the nude men are herded through a string of doctor’s offices
c. 1960
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image/sheet: 16.5 × 24.5 cm (6 1/2 × 9 5/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund
Accession Number
2022.102.1
Art Historical Context
In the stark gelatin silver print *During group medical examination, nude men are herded a string of doctor’s* (c. 1960), South African photographer Ernest Cole captures harrowing moment of apartheid-era dehumanization. Black men, stripped bare and lined up like cattle, shuffle through a series of clinical rooms for mandatory medical inspections—a routine required for obtaining passbooks that controlled their movement and labor in white-dominated urban areas. Cole who worked undercover as a Black pass-holder himself, risked his life to document these indignities, smuggling his negatives out of...