David Lurie

David Lurie (born 1951) is a South African photographer, living and working in Cape Town. Lurie has exhibited in the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States, Australia, South Africa and the Middle East.

Life and career

Born in Cape Town in 1951, Lurie studied economics, politics and philosophy at the University of Cape Town, and graduated with a BA Honours degree. He went on to teach philosophy at the University before moving to the London School of Economics in London in 1980, where he undertook research at the Department of International Relations. From 1985, he worked as a consultant economist in London.

In 1990, Lurie, self-taught in photography, began taking on documentary projects part-time. This became his full-time job in 1995, following the publication of his first book Life in the Liberated Zone.

Books Life in the Liberated Zone. Manchester: Cornerhouse, 1994. . Cape Town Fringe: Manenberg Avenue is where it's happening. Cape Town: Double Storey, 2004. . Images of Table Mountain. Cape Town: Bell-Roberts, 2006. .

Exhibitions South African Photographs: 1990 (toured UK) Portfolio Gallery, London (with Omar Badsha and David Goldblatt) (1992) Crisis in South Africa's Health Services: 1994 (UK) Offside: Cape Town 2010 at the AVA Gallery, Cape Town, on the peripheries of Cape Town society. "This selection of photographs deconstructs and explores the irony and inherent contradictions promulgated by the media that has turned a blind eye to the realities of poverty, mass inequality and xenophobia in order to line the pockets of the chosen few." The Right To Refuge, with supporting text by Steven Robins and poetry by Patricia Schonstein, Cape Town Holocaust Centre, 2010.

Collections Iziko South African National Gallery The World Understanding Award for Cape Town Fringe: Manenberg Avenue is where it’s happening Arts Council of Great Britain grant awards