Summary
Colour photograph of Sylvia and Lindsay Motherwell with two friends on board the ship 'Fairsky' when it was docked in Cape Town, 1970. Sylvia and Lindsay were on their way to Melbourne but were not allowed to go ashore in South Africa as a mixed-race couple during the apartheid era.
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
Four people sitting around a table by a balcony, drinking Victoria Bitters beer. On woman's wedding ring is lit up by the camera flash.
Physical Description
Colour 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
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Person Depicted
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Person Depicted
Mr Lindsay S. Motherwell, Cape Town, South Africa, 6 May 1970
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Format
Photograph, Colour
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Inscriptions
Reverse Stamped: ColourLab Johannesburg Cape Town
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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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Overall Dimensions - Closed
242 mm (Width), 178 mm (Height)
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Overall Dimensions - Open
486 mm (Width), 178 mm (Height)
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Keywords
South African Immigration, Travel, Musicians, Jazz Bands, Immigration Policies, Apartheid, Racism, Music, Shipboard Travel