Duggan-Cronin Gallery
The Duggan-Cronin Gallery in Kimberley is a photographic museum displaying the photographs of Alfred Duggan-Cronin, Aubrey Elliot, Jean Morris and Alice Mertens. Their photographs of the indigenous peoples of southern Africa, taken between 1919 and 1980, show aspects of traditional life and dress now largely vanished.
Duggan-Cronin arrived in Kimberley in 1897. He worked in the De Beers compounds, where he began to build up a photographic record of the different tribes working on the mines. Encouraged by Maria Wilman, he undertook expeditions to the main tribal areas, where he photographed the people before the Western influence drastically changed their traditional ways of life. T
The Duggan-Cronin collection consists of negatives and prints, as well as artefacts of material culture of the tribes, including beadwork, costumes, pottery, iron tools and wood carvings. A selection of his photographs have been included in publications such as The Bushmen Tribes of Southern Africa and The Bantu Tribes of South Africa. Today the McGregor Museum is responsible for the maintenance of this collection. which is housed in a building in Belgravia originally known as The Lodge, but today simply known as the Duggan-Cronin Gallery. |