Page 6 - Bulletin 7 2003

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purchased his collection in better time he might have been able to put them into
somewhat better order.

Yet no account of the traditional built environment of the Cape as it still existed in

the early years of the present century has managed to do so without leaning heavily

on the work of this adventurous self-made American. So unfailing was his eye for the
essential in the already diminishing remains of the past surrounding him, and so

determined his approach in recording as much of it as possible before it had
dwindled even further, that it was decided to compile this album largely from his

collection. This has the added advantage of presenting a coherent picture, all the
more fitting because it is consistency and unity which are the main claims to fame of

Cape colonial architecture.

In this way, I also wish to pay tribute to a modest man, who, as De Bosdari put it,

‘while his better-placed contemporaries were destroying by profitable demolition,

preserved by photography, and did so with little regard for his own material interest’.

Not that Elliott’s work did not receive recognition. His large exhibitions made his
name widely known, so that at least he was able to make a living out of the sale of

prints. Many are the Africana publications in which extensive use is made of
photographs from the Elliott Collection. Some of these, such as the commemorative

volume Stellenbosch 1679 – 1929 (containing over a hundred of his photographs)

and Dorothea Fairbridge’s and Pearse’s standard works on old Cape architecture
appeared during his lifetime; many others, on a variety of subjects ranging from

shipping to silver, since then. Moreover, charming biographies by Lighton and by
Laidler deal with Elliott’s life and the history of his photographic collection more

fully than I have been able to do here, and deserve to be read by all who want to
know more about his fascinating personality. But these publications do not give

appraisals of the artistic and historical merits of his photographs, this is the purpose

of the introductory notes which follow.