Obie Oberholzer has released fifty five of his all-time favourite colour photographs taken from 1978 to 2007 and the works can be viewed at The Photographers Gallery ZA or at Erdmann Contemporary .
Oberholzer may be known as South Africa’s father of colour photography, but a lesser known fact is that when he dismantled his darkroom in 2009, we lost one of our greatest colour hand printers.
He studied Graphic Design at the University of Stellenbosch in the late 1960’s. It was during this time when he discovered that cameras can produce images. He fell in love with photography, bought a Hasselblad, and by 1970 he was in Germany studying at the Bavarian State Institute of Photography in Munich. He excelled at image making and graduated with distinctions.
His timing could not have been better. Colour photography emerged triumphantly in the early 1970’s and much of this development was driven by multinational corporations like Agfa and Kodak, who were competing for a share in this new market. Oberholzer found himself at the center of this world-wide development.
He returned to South Africa in 1973, and in 1979 was back in Germany at the same institution to complete a Masters Diploma in Photography. In 1984 he joined Rhodes University in Grahamstown and headed their photography department until his retirement in 2002.
He has had thirty four solo exhibitions in South Africa and ten solo exhibitions in Europe.
WHERE: The Photographers Gallery ZA & ErdmannContemporary, 84 Kloof Street,  Gardens, Cape Town 8001
INFO: T.021 422 2762  E photogallery@mweb.co.za  www.erdmanncontemporary.co.za
