Summary
Black and white photograph of Sylvia Boyes with two women taken in Cape Town, 1960s. It is the same image that appears in a newspaper article about a charity performance of 'Adams Rib' (HT 56404). Sylvia was involved in theatre from a young age, and met her future husband through the Eoan Group theatre company.
Sylvia Boyes (a South African-born orphan) and Lindsay Motherwell (a Melbourne-born drummer) met in Cape Town, South Africa in 1967 through their theatre connections. They fell in love but due to apartheid laws were forced to leave South Africa to marry in London. They subsequently relocated permanently to Melbourne in 1970.
Description of Content
Three women wearing 1950s-style floral dresses.
Physical Description
Black and white photograph
Significance
Statement of Historical Significance:
This collection provides a significant opportunity to represent political and personal freedom as a motivation for migrating to Australia within the international context of both apartheid in South Africa and the end of the White Australia policy in Australia. The personal narrative is well documented and the objects provide a material way to follow the lives of both Lindsay and Sylvia, both separately and where they coincide in South Africa and onwards together to Melbourne. While this is ultimately a love story, it plays out through the collection against the backdrop of apartheid South Africa, sixties London and an increasingly multicultural Australia.
More Information
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Collecting Areas
Images & Image Making, Migration & Cultural Diversity, Leisure
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Person Depicted
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Format
Photograph, Black & White
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Classification
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Category
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Discipline
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Type of item
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Object Dimensions
211 mm (Width), 158 mm (Height)
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Keywords
South African Immigration, Travel, Musicians, Jazz Bands, Immigration Policies, Apartheid, Racism, Working Life, Portraits, Charity Functions, Race Relations