Above left: Kavango girl fishing with
Shikuku basket trap.
Above right: Full grown San Bushman
(150 cms) with two teenage European boys.
ALICE MERTENS - 1915 - 2001
Alice Victoria Mertens was
born in Namibia in February
1915. Shortly before WWII, she studied photography at Reimann School in Berlin.
She became a
professional photographer and worked as a journalist in Cape Town between 1964
and 1980. Alice Mertens travelled extensively in Southern Africa, studying the scenery,
its wildlife and indigenous peoples. Dozens of her photographs were
used at the International Court of
Justice in The Hague in 1964. Between 1959 and 1975, she authored or co-authored
eleven books (listed below).
Alice lectured in the
Arts Department at the University of Stellenbosch. She
bequeathed her collection of slides and photographs to the Duggan-Cronin
Museum in Kimberly.
According to Wim Tijmens, Alice
Mertens: was so intent on perfect
shots that on one occasion she actually dug herself into a deep, sandy hole
in the Etosha Pan, securing photos from underneath elephant's bellies as
they trundled over her camouflaged body!
Nyemba (Ndemba) and Mbukushu girls / women.
Mbukushu girls with Thihukeka wigs.
Old and young highly decorated San Bush-women
with child.
Mbukushu Thihukeka wig and beaded back
aprons.
and
through 