This summer, Autograph presents the first exhibition ofErnest Cole’s photographs documenting New York City during the height of the civilrights movement in America.

Offering a rare and reflective insight into the seminal South African photographer ErnestCole, A Lens in Exile will be on showat Autograph’s gallery in East London from 13June – 12 October.

Best known for his radical images documenting the violence of apartheid, Cole fled South Africa in 1966 and was officially made stateless in 1968. In a televised interview in 1969 he expressed a hope of being liberatedfrom the day-to-day experienceof racism. Focused on the humanity of everyday life, Cole spent his first years in New York City photographing Harlem and Manhattan, focusing his lens on the experience of living in a racialised America.

Framed against the struggle for civil rights,Cole captured momentsof emergent black awakenings, unfolding within public and private spaces by theforces of Black Pride and Black Power. These remarkably intuitive photographs – documentingprotest, politics and daily existence – were forgedthrough a transgressive challenge to the status quoof American society.

Despite Cole’s observanteye confronting Americain transition, these socialdocumentary images revealeda chasm. Disillusioned and isolated in exile, he beganto reflect that the systemicexclusion and segregation he experienced in South Africawas also prevalent in America. In his own words “it wasn’t any better: there was nofreedom”.

The photographs displayed in the exhibition were taken between1967–1972, representing a small chapter ofCole’s 40,000 images taken while in exile. In 2017, thousands of his negatives believedto have been missing for more than 40 years were discovered in aStockholm bank vault. The Ernest Cole Family Trust was subsequently established to ensure Cole's important photographic legacy is preserved.

Ernest Cole: A Lens in Exile is realisedin collaboration with Magnum Photos and The ErnestCole Family Trust.

Autograph, Rivington Place,London EC2A 3BA