George Hallett: Home & Exile

George Hallett: Home and Exile brings together works by Cape Town-born South African photographer George Hallett (1942-2020) who lived in exile in Europe from 1970 to the mid-1990s.

Introduced to literature, music and visual arts by South African authors Richard Rive (1931-1989), James Matthews (1929-2024), and visual artist Peter Clarke (1929-2014), Hallett developed his practice as a self-taught street photographer in Cape Town in the 1960s. His early images depict street scenes in places such as the neighbourhood of District Six, Black communities, and cultural figures and moments that were to become a major theme throughout his career. 

As a South African of mixed heritage, his experience of discrimination during apartheid, and the lack of professional opportunities, led him to exile. He first settled in England in the early 1970s before moving to France and the Netherlands. In Europe, and on visits to the United States and other parts of the world, Hallett photographed both South African exile and Black life with the intention of creating a visual record that restored dignity to a people that was either absent or misrepresented in mainstream media. In doing so, he created an incredible photographic archive of Black resistance and resilience both in the place from which he was exiled, and the places that he called home.

In Bristol, George Hallett: Home and Exile takes its cue from an article published in 1966 in the Western Daily Press announcing a talk by South African author, journalist, and political activist Alex La Guma (1924-1985) in the venue formerly known as Colston Hall. The exhibition presents a selection of images around the figure of La Guma, as well as other South African writers, visual artists, and jazz musicians who left their country because of apartheid’s repressive laws. The display also includes examples of Hallett’s designs for book covers of the African Writers Series published in Britain by Heinemann, and record sleeves created for the jazz label Ogun Records.

First presented at Clémentine de la Féronnière in Paris in March 2025 as part of Centre Pompidou’s programme “Échos Paris noir”, the exhibition was subsequently shown at Exhibition Research Lab (ERL) Gallery, Liverpool. For Bristol Photo Festival, it is presented at IC Visual Lab, located at 6 West Street—the former home of the Southern Africa Resource Centre (SARC), an organisation that campaigned against apartheid. 

Biographies

George Hallett (1942–2020) was a self-taught photographer from Cape Town, South Africa. He exhibited at Clémentine de la Féronnière, Paris (2025); Peltz Gallery, London (2023); Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town (2022); Bozar, Brussels (2018); Bamako Encounters: African Biennale of Photography, Bamako (2017); and EVA International, Ormston House, Limerick (2016). He was also included in Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life, curated by Okwui Enwezor at the International Center of Photography, New York (2012), which toured to Haus der Kunst, Munich and Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan (2013), and Museum Africa, Johannesburg (2014–15).

His work is held in numerous private and public collections, including Iziko – South African Art Gallery; Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town; District Six Museum and Bo-Kaap Museum, Cape Town; and the Library of Birmingham, UK.

Christine Eyene is an art historian and curator. She is currently Curator of French Institute Cameroon’s 2027 cultural season. From 2022 to 2026, she was Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art and Co-Director of ERL Gallery, Liverpool John Moores University. Prior to that, she worked for 10 years with Pr. Lubaina Himid CBE RA on the project Making Histories Visible at the University of Lancashire.

Her research and curating encompass contemporary art from a global perspective, with an interest in African and Diaspora arts. Her practice also engages with socially oriented initiatives, urban culture, new media, music, design, and architecture.

In 2024 she completed her PhD in History of Art at Birkbeck, University of London, under the supervision of Professor Annie E. Coombes. Her thesis focuses on the relationship between text, African literature, and visual representation in the work of George Hallett.

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