Nelson Mandela

© Jillian Edelstein / Camera Press

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Nelson Mandela

by Jillian Edelstein
bromide fibre print, 6 February 1997
18 7/8 in. x 13 3/8 in. (480 mm x 340 mm) image size
Purchased, 2006
Photographs Collection
NPG x128760

Sitterback to top

  • Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918-2013), President of South Africa; President of the African National Congress. Sitter in 6 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Jillian Edelstein (1957-), Photographer. Artist or producer of 120 portraits, Sitter in 3 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Jillian Edelstein spent four years documenting participants in South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation hearings. This portrait was taken in a ten minute sitting at the Presidential house.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Edited by Rab MacGibbon and Tanya Bentley, Icons and Identities, 2021, p. 57
  • Nairne, Sandy (foreword) Rake, Michael (foreword) Coe, Sebastian (introduction) McClure, Richard (photographers' profiles) Smith, Liz (appreciation) McClure, Richard and Braybon, Anne (appreciation), Road to 2012: Stories Behind the Olympic Games, 2012 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 20 July - 26 September 2010, 25 July - 25 September 2011 and 19 July - 23 September 2012), p. 139

Placesback to top

  • Place made: South Africa (sitter's home, Genadendal Residence, Cape Town, South Africa)

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Subject/Themeback to top

Events of 1997back to top

Current affairs

The Labour party - re-branded as New Labour - win a spectacular landslide election and Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister. Their electoral campaign promised that 'things can only get better' and that their priorities would be 'education, education, education.' While New Labour's 'third way' centralist approach put off some party traditionalists, it secured the popular vote.
Princess Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed die in a car crash in Paris.

Art and science

J.K. Rowling publishes Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first of seven fantasy books chronicling the life of Harry and his friends at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: learning magic, breaking school rules, romantic entanglements and their struggles against the evil Lord Voldemort.
Scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland announce that they have cloned the first mammal from an adult cell: '6LL3', or Dolly the Sheep.

International

Governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten hands the island back to China after one hundred and fifty years as a British Colony. Although sovereignty was restored to China, it was agreed that the Island would become a 'Special Administrative Region' under the 'One Country, Two Systems' principle, effectively keeping its capitalist economy and way of life for a period of 50 years.

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