Ruphin Coudyzer

Ruphin Coudyzer (1948-) is a photographer and musician.

Biography

Born Ruphin Maurice Coudyzer on 30 March, 1948 in Waregem in West Flanders, Belgium, where he completed high school at the Heilig Hart College Waregem, then went to university to study classical philology for one year, then switched to a two year Commercial and Secretarial Degree.

At age 13 he had obtained his first guitar and founded his first four piece rockband at the age of 14 (called "The Silhouettes", later renamed "The Phantoms"). A more serious rock/underground band "All Of Us", followed after four years, and they performed until his military service call up in 1970.

Armed with his training, he came to SA in August 1971 and got a job as safe custodian and rights department in a stockbroking company (National Board Of Executors) in Johannesburg.

However, he soon tired of this after one and a half years, so in 1973 he bought a camera and taught himself photography - a career that led him to become one of the more highly rated photographers in the country and certainly one of its most most prominent theatre and arts photographers.

Highlights as photographer and photo journalist

He started out with a job as darkroom operator with the Argus Africa News Service. During this time he compiled a documentary on Kliptown, a coloured township next to Soweto, an exhibition of which was held at The Photographers Gallery in London in 1977.

He also started an ongoing series Focus on People, a candid reportage on people in their everyday doings, exhibiting some of this work at the Market Theatre and the Carlton Centre.

In 1977 he joined The Star newspaper's news photographers team for two years, both years winning the Star-Picture-of-the-Year award, as well as being highly commended in the News Picture Category of the Shell Press Pictures of the Year Awards of 1978 and 1979.

During 1978 he was commissioned to provide the slides for the Audio-Visual of The Star's Newspapers in Education project headed by William Smith.

In 1979 he became The Star Tonight! magazine photographer and in the same year he held an exhibition at the Market Theatre Photo Gallery entitled Le Plat Pays of work done during various visits to his home country Belgium.

In 1982 he won a World Press Photo Contest Award in the art section with a photo of the Sonje Mayo Dance Group.

In that same year he also got six entries in the book A Day in the Life of South Africa.

He retired to Kleinmond, Western Cape, South Africa, moving to The Strand in 2023.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

A superb craftsman, perhaps the best known in theatrical circles as the chronicler of Johannesburg’s Market Theatre (the 1970s-1990s) and of the Grahamstown Festival.

He actually did the photography for productions by numerous other performers and companies as well, including presentations by Andrew Buckland, Committed Artists, Handspring Puppet Company, Junction Avenue Theatre Company, Mannie Manim, Mbongeni Ngema, Robyn Orlin, Paul Slabolepszy and Pieter Toerien.

For more details of his portfolio, see his Facebook entry at https://www.facebook.com/Ruphin.Maurice.Coudyzer/photos

Sources

E-mail correspondence from Ruphin Coudyzer, Thursday 2022/03/17 19:20

An interview and subsequent email correspondence between Coudyzer and Temple Hauptfleisch, during August 2023.

Report by Adrienne Sichel published in The Star, 28 March 2006.

Website: http://www.ruphin.com/index.htm

https://www.facebook.com/Ruphin.Maurice.Coudyzer

Curriculum Vitae: Ruphin Coudyzer (March, 2024)

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