George Hallett, one of South Africa’s most eminent photographers passed away this week on the 1st of July.
Born in District Six in Cape Town in 1942, George Hallett trained as a street photographer with Kariem Halim’s studio. He left South Africa in 1970, shortly after the Group Areas Act was enforced in his hometown, forcibly removing Blacks from mixed areas such as District Six (1966) and Simon’s Town (1970).
On arrival in Britain, George Hallett worked for Times Higher Education Supplement and designed book covers for the celebrated Heinemann African Writers Series. His other photographs during this time focussed on South African political and artistic exiles in London, Amsterdam and France.
George Hallett moved to Céret in the south of France in 1971. Another legendary publisher of African stories, Editions Présence Africaine, invited him to exhibit his work along with South African artists Gerard Sekoto and Louis Maurice at the Salle de la Siem in Paris in 1974. It was the first of many encounters with Sekoto, who became one of Hallett’s preferred subjects, along with, of course, his lifelong friend, Peter Clarke.
The exceptional talents of these three artists, bound by their respective experiences in France and encounters with each other in the country, were celebrated in the exhibition A Portrait of South Africa: George Hallett, Peter Clarke and Gerard Sekoto held at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris in 2013, as part of the South African Season in France.
George Hallett returned to South Africa in 1990 just prior to Nelson Mandela’s release from prison. He photographed preparations for the first democratic elections in 1994 and was the official photographer of the landmark Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that gave amnesty to those implicated in apartheid crimes, in exchange for the truth.
His life’s work was honoured with a comprehensive retrospective at the South African National Gallery in 2014.
George Hallett was awarded the title of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Ministry of Culture in 2016.
Text by Riason Naidoo, recipients of the Cité internationale des arts Writing committees and curator of the exhibition A Portrait of South Africa: George Hallett, Peter Clarke and Gerard Sekoto (2013).