David Goldblatt in Conversation With Joseph Lelyveld at The Jewish Museum May 4

New York, NY — On Tuesday, May 4 at 6:30 pm, The Jewish Museum presents photographer David Goldblatt in conversation with Joseph Lelyveld, former New York Times executive editor and correspondent in South Africa. The two will discuss the new exhibition, South African Photographs: David Goldblatt, on view at the Museum from May 1 through September 19, 2010.

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South African Photographs: David Goldblatt, the largest New York City exhibition of the photographer’s work since 2001, presents 150 black-and-white silver gelatin prints taken between 1948 and 2009, focusing on South Africa’s human landscape in the apartheid and post-apartheid eras. Goldblatt has not documented major political events or horrifying incidents of violence. Instead, he focuses on the details of daily life and the world of ordinary people, a world where the apartheid system penetrates every aspect of society. He is constantly searching for the substance beneath the surface of human situations. Recipient of the 2009 Henri Cartier-Bresson Award and the prestigious 2006 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, David Goldblatt is his country’s most distinguished photographer.

David Goldblatt was born in 1930, the youngest of the three sons of Eli and Olga Goldblatt. His grandparents arrived in South Africa from Lithuania around 1893, having fled the persecution of Jews in the Baltic countries. David’s paternal grandfather owned a general store in Randfontein, a gold-mining town some forty kilometers west of Johannesburg. Eli Goldblatt built the business into a respected men’s clothing store and for some years David assisted with the running of the shop when his father’s poor health necessitated it. But he was only biding his time. He had become interested in photography in high school, and after his father’s death in 1962, he sold the business to devote all of his time to being a photographer. David Goldblatt’s works are held in many collections, including the Johannesburg Art Gallery; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the French National Art Collection; and the Bibliotheque National de France. He has published several books, including On the Mines, with Nadine Gordimer (1973); Some Afrikaners Photographed (1975); In Boksburg (1982); Lifetimes: Under Apartheid, with Nadine Gordimer (1986); The Transported of KwaNdebele with Brenda Goldblatt and Phillip van Niekerk (1989); South Africa: The Structure of Things Then (1998); Particulars (2003); Intersections (2005); Some Afrikaners Revisited (2007); and Intersections Intersected (2008).

Joseph Lelyveld is a former correspondent and editor of The New York Times, serving as executive editor from 1994 to 2001 and again in 2003. He worked with David Goldblatt on tours in South Africa in 1965-1966 and 1980-1983. His book, Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White won a Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction in 1986. Lelyveld is the author of a family memoir, Omaha Blues: A Memory Loop (2005). His new book, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India, will be published by Knopf in 2011.

An infrared assistive listening system for the hearing impaired is available for programs in the Museum’s S. H. and Helen R. Scheuer Auditorium.

This program is The Gertrude and David Fogelson Lecture, endowed by gifts in honor of Gertrude and David Fogelson.

Public Programs at The Jewish Museum are supported, in part, by public funds from by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Major annual support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. The stage lighting has been funded by the Office of Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer. The audio-visual system has been funded by New York State Assembly Member Jonathan Bing.