Photographer: Goldstein, Henri (1920-2014).
Title: untitled (Une femme Makere).
Date: 1949.
Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Medium: unmounted gelatin silver print.
Size: 18,1 x 23,9 cm.
Condition: very good.
Reference: HGV0608/1
Provenance: French collection.
Extra: typed note with identification in French and Dutch and Congopresse stamp on verso. Congopresse 22.332/49.
Several ethnic groups living south of the Uele River — the Mangbetu, the Mayogo, and the Bangba — wear the same hairstyle: the elongated hair is arranged like a crown around a framework that extends the shape of the head.
The Makere are of Sudanese origin. Several centuries ago, they settled between the Uele and the Mbomu rivers. Later, they were pushed further south due to pressure from other Sudanese invasions.
Henri Goldstein (1920 – 2014) was an apprentice at the Belgian press agency Acta from the age of 14. Working in the Congo, he became a renowned photographer of equatorial wildlife. In this capacity, he accompanied American scientific expeditions and exhibited in New York. During the war he was a prisoner of war in Germany, notably in the fortress of Colditz in Saxony, then in the disciplinary camp 1446 Torfwerk in the Himmelmoor near Hamburg, and thus escaped the extermination camps, even though he was Jewish. He returned to Leopoldville in 1947 and became head of the photography department of the colonial information service until the colony unexpectedly gained its independence in 1960. At the end of 1992, he published his memories under the title "Les maillons de la chaîne" (Ed. Dricot).