Isaac Schapera�s photos

Sandy Grant | Wednesday February 24, 2016 13:21

 

I quickly found appropriate firms there able to make prints from some of those negatives which varied from the very large to the fairly small. In Mochudi we soon had many of those prints on display – probably the first time that this had happened, But after a time, I became uneasy about holding those negatives.

I told Schapera that whilst I felt that his photos should be available in this country, I was unable to recommend any institution which I felt had the capability of caring for, and managing those photos. Schapera accepted my advice and suggested that I return the negatives to him in London.

I did so. Before long, however, I was astonished to learn that he had split the negatives in two – they were kept in perhaps 10 folders – and had given half to Alec Campbell and the National Museum in Gaborone and half to the Royal Anthropological Institute in London. Following Schapera’s death in 2003 the Institute informed me that Schapera had given it sole rights to his photos.

This meant, apparently, that the Institute had such rights regardless of the whereabouts of the negatives. In other words, the fact that the National Museum held half of the negatives gave it no particular claim on them. The implication was obvious the Museum might have those negatives but it couldn’t use them. In the event, that possibility has never occurred. Whilst the Museum does have a photographic archive of considerable public importance, its collection has never been available for inspection and none of the photos it holds can be seen, let alone be purchased.

The details of its holdings are, in effect, a secret. Self evidently there is no point a museum having items in its collection which may never be seen by members of the public. When this happens it is obvious that the museum is off on some private mission of its own, it is not there to serve the public. What happens now? Firstly, the Museum should be obliged to disclose the details of its photographic archives. Secondly, it needs to be accepted that retaining Schapera’s negatives in Gaborone gains us absolutely nothing. They should be passed over to the RAI in London.

Unfortunately, whilst doing so will be logical and sensible, it will not help to make Schapera’ s invaluable photos more accessible to researchers here. When last I knew, the RAI’s charges for prints of those photos were way out of reach of most peoples pockets.  I will never believe that Schapera could ever have wanted or even conceived that one day his wonderful photos would be, in effect, unavailable to us here.  But that, sadly, is how it is.  The best we can do is to buy a copy of his African Photos  by the Comaroffs and Deborah James.