Tribute to the Legendary Rashid Lombard
“Artists give people something they didn’t know they were missing.” – Daniel Pink
The jazz photographer and political photojournalist, Rashid Lombard, gave custody of his archives to the University of the Western Cape in April 2022, with intentions to have them digitised and to initiate an accessible photography centre. These archives consisted of more than 500 000 photographs that Lombard had made since the early 1960s, which were thus artworks that had been done over 50 years. The photographs consisted of musicians and significant music events, high-ranking political figures, political protests and everyday moments of life under apartheid.
Lombard worked for the BBC, NBC, AFP and a number of progressive publications such as “Grassroots” and “South”, with his work being part of exhibitions all over southern Africa, including the University of Zimbabwe in 1983 and the Staffrider exhibitions of 1984 and 1985. Being a member of the “Vukalisa” artists’ collective, he was involved in the promotion of community-based cultural activities.
As the CEO of espAfrika, an events management company which he started in 1997, Lombard was responsible for staging the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, formerly known as the North Sea Jazz Cape Town. The Cape Town festival was an offshoot of the North Sea Jazz Festival that is held annually on the second weekend of July in the Netherlands at the Rotterdam Ahoy venue.
