A pensioner with his wife and a portrait of her first husband, Wheatland Plots

David Goldblatt’s photographs of South African communities during the 1960s and 1970s document the socioeconomic and political realities of life under apartheid. With gritty honesty, Goldblatt photographed members of the Afrikaner farming community. Afrikans are the descendants of Dutch settlers who first arrived in South Africa in the 1600s. In this portrait, an elderly man and his wife confront Goldblatt’s camera with wary gazes. A portrait of the woman’s first husband hangs on the spare wall behind them.