Biography David Goldblatt (Randfontein, South Africa, 1930)
David Goldblatt was born in 1930 in Randfontein, South Africa, the son of Lithuanian-Jewish parents who had fled Europe with their parents in the 1890s. He became interested in photography in high school, but found little opportunity in his chosen field of magazine photography. Discouraged, he joined the family’s menswear business and began work part-time on a university degree. Following his father’s death in 1962, he sold the clothing concern and began working full-time as a photographer. Goldblatt’s photographs are in the collections of the South African National Gallery, Cape Town; the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has published several books of his work.