Friends of Bensusan Museum of Photography

It is founded by By Dr David Kin Bensusan, who donated his collection of books, photographs and cameras to the city of Johannesburg in 1945. Presently, it is housed at Museum Africa in Newtown, and receives both local and international visitors and researchers. In its holdings are a very early photograph made by WH Fox Talbot, a signed portrait of Sir John Herschel by Julia Margaret Cameron, a ver

y early wet plate ‘camera de poche’, and on permanent loan, a gold snakeskin covered rectaflex made to commemorate the invention of the single lens reflex camera. Archival holdings include cabinet and stereo cards made by South African professional photographers, and important collections of prints by celebrated photographers such as, Leon Levson, Eli Weinberg, Will Till, Struan Robertson, Julia Margaret Cameron, Constance Stuart-Larrabee, and Jane Plotz. David Goldblatt’s images from his publication ‘On the Mines’ (1973) and his photographs from the 1970s also form part of this historic archive. On show currently is ‘Photos in Black and White: Margaret Bourke-White and the dawn of Apartheid’, curated by Alex Lichtenstein. 11 January 2014-23 March 2014. The quotidian events of Newtown unfold in real time inside the museum’s Camera Obscura, and form fascinating viewing for local and international visitors alike, and forms an enchanting highlight of the museum.