One Hundred Years of Collecting: The Johannesburg Art Gallery by Breinstorm Brand Architects

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF COLLECTING: THE JOHANNESBURG ART GALLERY

Editor: Jillian Carman

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Sponsors: Anglo American in South Africa, ArcelorMittal, Arts Alive, Becomo Art Centre, Bell Dewar, BMW, Business and Arts South Africa, Circa on Jellicoe, Department of Arts and Culture, DESIGN>MAGAZINE, DESIGN>ART, Everard

Read Gallery, Flor Décor, Gauteng Tourism Authority, Goodman Gallery, Investment Solutions, Johannesburg Property Company, MTN Foundation, National Arts Council, Nestlé South Africa, North-West Provincial Government, North-West University, Old Mutual, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Sanlam Private Investments, SAS, Scaw Metals Group, South African Breweries, South Point Properties, Standard Bank Gallery, UNISA and Walter Sisulu Square

Project director: Antoinette Murdoch

Editor: Jillian Carman

Project team: Cameron Bramley, Anthea Buys,

Reshma Chhiba, Grateful Dandara, Jacques Lange, Jeff Malan, Karuna Pillay and Anri Theron

Contributing authors: Jo Burger, Jillian Carman, Bongi Dhlomo, Khwezi Gule, Nessa Leibhammer, Sheree Lissoos and Elza Miles

Photography: John Hodgkiss, with additional images by Geoff Black (p 32, 70, 109, 128), John Murdoch (p 8) and archival material

Proofreader: Tracy Murinik

Design: Bluprint Design

Production management: DESIGN>MAGAZINE and Value Capture Media & Marketing (Pty) Ltd

First published in 2010 on the occasion of the celebration of the centenary of the Johannesburg Art Gallery collection.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing by the publisher and copyright owners.

All works of art reproduced in this publication are from the collection of the Johannesburg Art Gallery. All efforts were made to gain permission from the artists or copyright owners.

ISBN 978-0-620-48858-7

Printed in the Republic of South Africa by Creda Communications (Pty) Ltd

14 Foreword

Amos Masondo

15 Foreword

Michael Murray

17 Acknowledgements

Antoinette Murdoch

18 Sponsors

21 Introduction: ch anging co ntexts

Jillian Carman

35 Seeds of ch ange

Bongi Dhlomo

43 Becoming hi storic

Jillian Carman and Sheree Lissoos

83 Filling th e sp aces/Contesting th e canons

Nessa Leibhammer

119 Contending le gacies: So uth Af rican modern an d co ntemporary ar t collections

Khwezi Gule

187 Library, me mory an d archives

Johannesburg Ar t Ga llery li brary

Jo Burger

Retrieving th e in stitutional me mory

Jillian Carman

The FU BA Ac ademy Archives

Elza Miles

191 References

193 Index of il lustrations

An installation view of William Kentridge’s I am not me, the horse is not mine (2010).

To commemorate Women’s Month in South Africa, JAG staff members curated the exhibition Transformations: women’s art from the late 19th century to 2010. This picture shows an installation view including Gabrielle Goliath’s photo tryptich Ek is ‘n Kimberley Coloured

Johannes Phokela’s 2006 exhibition Translation (In memory of Durant Sihlali) installed in the JAG’s historic Phillips Gallery.

Edoardo Villa’s sculpture St Sebastian stands outside the North Entrance to JAG.

The giant match, a public performance by French puppetry troupe Les Grandes Personnes, celebrated the opening of the exhibition Borders in June 2010. The giant match took place in Joubert Park and in the gallery grounds and told the story of two families who reconcile their differences through a soccer match.

In 1996 American artist Robert Rauschenberg donated an edition of his print portfolio Tribute 21 (1994) to JAG. It was one of only 21 museums around the world to have received this valuable gift of 21 water transfer prints.

Audience members trying to stay dry in Bili Bidjocka’s installation, The room of tears, a work included in the groundbreaking exhibition Africa remix in 2007.

German artist Harun Farocki’s multimedia installation Deep play, first shown at Documenta 12 in 2007, was installed at JAG for the duration of the FIFA World Cup 2010.

Fish drum from Lake Fundudzi, a once-off performance by Samson Mudzunga and accompanying dancers in the JAG courtyard on Heritage Day, 24 September 2008.

The JAG library is an important resource for students and researchers in the arts and holds over 9 000 publications and an even larger archive of press clippings and documents.

FOREWORD

Amos Masondo, Ex ecutive Ma yor: Ci ty Of Jo hannesburg

At the turn of the twentieth century, when Johannesburg was still hardly formed, a woman named Florence Phillips had a vision for the dusty mining camp: she wanted it to be an arts and culture centre in the British colony. Her efforts to start a municipal art collection for the city, and to build a place in which the collection could be housed, are the origins of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG). Today, far from the exemplary colonial art collection Lady Phillips had envisaged for the city, the Johannesburg Art Gallery’s collection is one of the most important representatives of contemporary, historical and traditional southern African art in the world.

The Johannesburg Art Gallery centenary catalogue commemorates the hundredth year of the founding of the Johannesburg collection by providing readers with a consolidated showcase of some of the finest pieces owned by JAG. Spanning works from the foundation collection – the very first paintings purchased and donated in order to start a collection – to the cutting edge of contemporary art being produced by young South African artists, this catalogue is a testament to the changing face of Johannesburg throughout its history.

Essays in this publication examine with rigour the relationship between three major phases in the life of the JAG collection, namely, its early history, its negotiation of South Africa’s apartheid era, and the creative milieu of postapartheid, contemporary South Africa. The southern African traditional collection, which is well-represented in this book, spans all three eras. Having been disregarded by the fine arts community in the early days of the collection, and introduced to the JAG collection in the late 1980s, during apartheid, so-called traditional works continue in the present day to provoke heated debate about the scholarly treatment of this genre of art-making and its relationship to mainstream art discourse.

Like the Johannesburg Art Gallery collection itself, the Johannesburg Art Gallery centenary catalogue is a valuable asset to the City of Johannesburg, in that it aims to make this municipal art collection more accessible to the citizens of the city. As a city art collection, the JAG collection belongs to the people of Johannesburg. It is my sincere hope that this catalogue will enrich the ways in which art lovers, scholars and visitors to the city experience our fine cultural heritage.

FOREWORD

Michael Mu rray, Ch airman of th e An glo Am erican

Jo hannesburg Ce ntenary Tr ust

Anglo American has been a long-standing advocate of arts and culture, which we believe are crucial for the development of South Africa. To this end, we are immensely proud of our partnership with the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) through the work of the Anglo American Johannesburg Centenary Trust.

We have realised profound value from supporting the gallery and its initiatives over the years. Our support is guided by our desire to partner for best effect in everything we do, whether it be mining activities, social causes or cultural initiatives.

We recognise the importance of not only partnering with communities and stakeholders, but also of involving ourselves in culturally significant causes and events, and JAG certainly fits this category.

The larger community is often disconnected from the arts, and cultural sponsorship has the power to make a connection in a way that would otherwise not be feasible. The capacity of art to influence and shape society is often unrecognised. Art has the ability to affect one’s senses, emotions and intellect, and to facilitate an intuitive understanding of life. Crucially, it can be appreciated in more than one way, with vastly contrasting takes on a seemingly consistent subject. Thus it has the ability to transform popular perceptions, and instil alternative ideas about the way we observe the world around us.

As such, it is of the utmost importance that further prominence be provided to art, such as is the case with JAG. Through supporting and partnering with JAG, we hope

to entrench the cultural vibrancy and continued growth of South Africa.

JAG has consistently been at the forefront of reassessing South African art history through the presentation of groundbreaking exhibitions and the publication of accompanying catalogues, such as The neglected tradition (1988) and Art and ambiguity (1991). Its extensive collections of over 10 000 artworks, comprising traditional and contemporary South African art, and international art from the sixteenth century to the present, are an important part of our artistic heritage.

The publication describes JAG’s collections in three main areas:

• The collection during JAG’s first 50 years. This consisted mainly of European art, including seventeenth-century Dutch paintings, French Impressionists, English modernists and the Pim Bequest of over 500 prints, ranging from Dürer and Rembrandt to Whistler. White South African artists were increasingly represented.

• Traditional southern African art, a collection that was started in the late 1980s and has since been developed largely through funds from the Anglo American Johannesburg Centenary Trust.

• Contemporary South African art in a variety of media, and its modernist forerunners: works by predominantly black artists from the 1930s onwards, and their white counterparts.

In addition, there is an overview of smaller closed collections like textiles and oriental ceramics, a description of JAG’s important library and archive resources, and a personal

reminiscence about the transforming agenda of the Art Gallery Committee over the past 20 years, by Bongi Dhlomo, the first black member of the committee, who was appointed in 1992.

Museums need to effectively promote themselves through their exhibitions and collections. In order to achieve this, catalogues accompanying exhibitions are vital, not only as marketing tools, but also as educational resources. This particular publication focuses on the traditional southern African and contemporary South African collections, which take us into the next 100 years.

Ultimately, as sponsors and supporters of JAG, our aim is to invest in the future of the gallery. It is our sincere hope that through our support, and by producing publications such as this one, the arts will be opened up to marginalised communities, and a love for arts and culture will be instilled among those who were previously unaware.

Further, it is our hope that the cultural diversity, national records and heritage of South Africa will be highlighted, recorded and preserved. It also represents the chance for new, unheralded talent to be recognised, encouraged and developed.

I trust that this publication will provide you with valuable insight into the wonderful and complex artworks that constitute JAG, and encourage a lasting legacy of creativity and art appreciation within South African society.

would not be the vibrant institution it is today without its dedicated staff and volunteers (photographed 2010).

JAG

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Antoinette Mu rdoch, Ch ief Cu rator an d He ad: Jo hannesburg Ar t Ga llery

My special thanks, first of all, to the staff of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) without whom this publication would not have been possible. This group of people works tirelessly on exhibitions, education programmes, acquisitions and restorations, and the JAG collection would not be what it is today without each and every one of them. In particular, thank you to Jo Burger who passionately keeps the library and archives alive and has ensured their position in this publication. Thanks to Sheree Lissoos and Nessa Leibhammer for their contributing essays and to Reshma Chhiba for her work on the images, captions and copyright. JAG also has a constant presence of volunteers and interns on whose efforts the museum depends for its day-to-day running. JAG’s dedicated volunteer guides, many of whom have worked at the gallery for years, also deserve thanks.

In addition to contributions of various kinds from staff members, several other former and non-staff members have given their invaluable input. Previous JAG curators, Jillian Carman and Khwezi Gule, and Art Gallery Committee member Bongi Dhlomo, have written essays, while Elza Miles, Anthea Buys and Grateful Dandara have contributed to the overall production of the book. In addition to her essay contribution, Jillian Carman has meticulously edited the book. Thank you also to Tracy Murinik for her proofreading, and to Richard Forbes who donated original screenprints that accompany 50 signed editions of the book.

The catalogue project originated with Clive Kellner, Director of the JAG from 2004 to 2008, and was brought to fruition with the generous support of Anglo American in South Africa. Thank you to Michael Murray, and to all those who have served as members of the trust over the years. Special thanks must go to the Friends of the Johannesburg Art Gallery for their ongoing support. Thank you also to all other financial contributors (p 18-19).

The political representatives who have supported the catalogue project for the City of Johannesburg are Executive Mayor, Cllr Amos Masondo; the MMC for Community Development, Cllr Bafana Sithole; Executive Director for Community Development, Pilisiwe Twala-Tau; Director of Arts, Culture and Heritage for the City of Johannesburg, Steven Sack; and the Deputy Director of Museums and Galleries for the City of Johannesburg, Langelihle Mfuphi.

Thanks to Jacques Lange, Karuna Pillay and Anri Theron, the designers of the publication and of JAG’s new branding, and thank you to Cameron Bramley and Jeff Malan for handling fundraising for the catalogue project.

I believe that it is important also to acknowledge all previous directors and heads of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, without whom the collection in its present form would not exist: A Edmund Gyngell (1911-28), Austin Winter Moore (1928-9), E E Eisenhofer (1929-37), P Anton

Hendriks (1937-64), Nel Erasmus (Acting Director, 1964-6; Director, 1966-77), Pat Senior (1977-83), Christopher Till (1983-91), Rochelle Keene (1991-2003) and Clive Kellner (2004-8). Thanks to the Art Gallery Committee members through the years, in special memory of Alan Crump, and to the current committee: Karel Nel, Bongi Dhlomo, Melissa Mboweni, David Goldblatt and Usha Seejarim.

Finally, my heartfelt thanks to the numerous friends and contributors who have dreamed, believed and showed support to the Johannesburg Art Gallery and its collection.

Antoinette Mu rdoch

Antoinette Murdoch, previously CEO of the Art Bank Joburg, was appointed Chief Curator and Head of the Johannesburg Art Gallery on 1 April 2009. She has a Masters in Fine Art from the University of the Witwatersrand.

INTRODUCTION: CH ANGING CO NTEXTS

Jillian Carman

When the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) opened to the public on 29 November 1910, it was acclaimed for its modern art collection (p 24). In fact, the more progressive of London art critics lamented that this rough young mining town in the colonies had received something that was more avant-garde than anything ‘back home’. Today, 100 years later and with the benefit of hindsight, this avant-garde claim seems absurd. But that was the opinion of the time.

A century later JAG is again acclaimed for its collection of contemporary art, the term preferred in 2010, as ‘modern’ no longer has an avant-garde meaning. The assessment criteria and the vast scope of JAG’s collections, of course, are radically different from what they were in 1910. JAG today is far more than a gallery of contemporary art. Its various collections constitute a unique record of the development of public culture over the past 100 years. It is a visual archive and a witness of political and social change, as well as of the huge shifts in assessing ‘what is art’ and what objects are worthy of collecting and holding in trust for the citizens of Johannesburg; and, indeed, of who the people are who are considered citizens. This centenary book sets out to explain the complexities which make up JAG in 2010.

Bongi Dhlomo’s essay, Seeds of change, sets the scene for describing this one hundred-year-old institution. She

was the first black person appointed, in 1992, to JAG’s Art Gallery Committee (AGC), a structure that had been in existence since the signing of the deed of donation in January 1913. The deed was created to keep JAG and its collections in trust ‘for the behoof and public benefit of the inhabitants’ of Johannesburg in perpetuity, ensuring proper maintenance for the collection, as well as its integrity and protection from political interference (Deed of donatio inter vivos, 21 January 1913). All decisions concerning JAG’s collections and related matters are made by the AGC before going through various municipal committees, and before reaching the full council for ratification. Council may refuse to ratify an acquisition – as Nessa Leibhammer describes in her essay concerning the purchase of the Lowen Collection – or withhold adequate maintenance and purchase funds, but it has no power to treat JAG’s collections as disposable assets, or to instruct the AGC to act in an immoral or illegal way. The AGC has seven trustees: three political representatives (two municipal councillors – one usually the mayor – and a government appointee) and four worthy citizens. Political interests cannot overrule those of Johannesburg citizens, and the terms of the trust cannot be changed. This admirable document has ensured the safe-keeping of JAG’s collections, but it has also ensured an often conservative grip on JAG’s policies through lack of change in the committee. The four committee members

representing Johannesburg’s citizens cannot be removed from office unless they voluntarily resign, commit a social indiscretion, become incompetent or die. Historically, many seem to have led long and upright lives with no intention of giving up a prestigious public position.

Demographic change in the AGC lagged behind JAG’s realigned collecting and exhibition policies. This partly explains why it took 80 years before black people became visible and actual stakeholders in JAG. Dhlomo explains how she wondered if she was a ‘sell-out’ when she accepted her appointment in 1992. But then she goes on to describe her passionate involvement in developments during the years leading to 2010, and the current demographic and democratic ownership of JAG by all Johannesburg’s citizens.

The arrangement of the three essays after Dhlomo’s underscores the trajectory of the changes in JAG’s collections over the past 100 years, the challenges to the canons of western art history, and the nature of the collection in 2010. Becoming historic, by Jillian Carman and Sheree Lissoos, describes the first 50 years of JAG’s life, and a collection that was firmly based within the tradition of western art. Nessa Leibhammer’s essay, Filling the spaces/Contesting the canons, is intentionally framed by Becoming historic, and Khwezi Gule’s Contending legacies: South African

modern and contemporary art collections. Leibhammer, by examining the items in JAG’s collection made by indigenous southern African artists, interrogates accepted art historical practices and the nature of what is considered art; probably the most acute challenges to the history of art in South Africa. Gule’s essay describes JAG’s contemporary collection as it is today, drawing together the strands that make up the complexity of art as it is practised and studied in 2010.

Becoming historic, by Carman and Lissoos, describes the foundation collection that was established with Randlord money, most notably from Otto Beit and Lionel Phillips (pp 27, 26). The project was driven by Florence Phillips (p 26) with the support of her husband Lionel, put together by Hugh Lane, and moved, in 1915, into a building designed by Edwin Lutyens (p 27).1 The essay addresses the basis on which the collection was built during the first 50 years of its existence, the main emphasis having been the filling of gaps identified by Lane (Prefatory notice, JAG 1910). The gaps, however, remained largely unfilled due to lack of funds until the 1930s, when the municipal council belatedly realised what a valuable asset it had sitting in Joubert Park. It funded the 1940 additions of the east and west wings to the Lutyens building, which had opened in 1915 in an incomplete state and remained incomplete until 1986, when Meyer Pienaar enclosed the courtyard and added wings, in the spirit of Lutyens’ original concept (pp 24-5). The council finally, in 1937, created a full-time director’s post with Anton Hendriks as the first incumbent, and allocated an acquisition budget. The collection then began to have its gaps addressed, a major gap having been the paucity of

South African art – although only of art made by white South African artists. Black artists were virtually ignored, with the exception of Gerard Sekoto, who had one westernstyle painting acquired in 1940, the only item by a black artist held by JAG during those first 50 years (p 81).

The central position in the book of Fillingthespaces/Contestingthecanons is a metaphor for the central position of traditional southern African art in the radical reassessment of art and art history in this country. The traditional collection contests the very criteria that Lane used to select items for JAG’s foundation collection: the aesthetic judgement that conformed to the grand narrative of western art history in deciding what is good art, and what is not. According to this narrative, art made beyond its perimeters was primitive, exotic or merely ‘other’. It was not part of mainstream art history. The traditional art-making, therefore, of the majority of inhabitants in South Africa would have been judged inferior to that of the European settler elite. Only those works by black South Africans that were made within the western canon would have been considered proper (or fine) art and, if judged (by western standards, of course) to be of sufficiently high quality, they could be purchased for a public art gallery.

In his essay Contending legacies: SouthAfrican modern and contemporary art collections, Gule in a way inverts the process of the first essay, Becoming historic. He discusses issues around what is modern and what is contemporary, and then works backwards to trace the nature of the legacy handed down to today’s practitioners. Carman and Lissoos start with the modern (or contemporary) a century ago and follow it into an historical space. Gule

discusses artists and artworks that are rooted in South Africa, its politics, subjects and contending identities. He shifts to the margins those grand white artists who feature centrally in twentieth-century books about the history of South African art, and traces the artistic legacy of South African art from the 1930s onwards in terms of black artists practising in a western idiom who were ignored during JAG’s first 50 years.

JAG’s overall collections do not fit neatly into these three main areas covered by the chapters, nor is its history a tidy, focused development along predetermined lines. Museums are far too messy to fit into such confines; many would say this is to their advantage. One of the earliest indications of diverging purposes was the development of JAG’s name from Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in the 1910 catalogue, which was produced under Lane’s direction, to the title given in the deed of donation of just over two years later, Art Gallery and Museum of Industrial Art. The latter name was evidently according to Florence Phillips’ wishes, Lane having since resigned as London-based director of JAG. Her intention was always to have examples of lace and furniture (p 28) and other educational items as part of JAG’s collection, but Lane had thwarted her plans by putting together a collection of modern art that excluded industrial art (also known as applied or decorative art). She had also wished to have an art school attached to the gallery, and for the building to house an art library (see Jo Burger’s account regarding the Michaelis library, pp 187-8).

Neither of these plans materialised as part of JAG’s extended functions. However, early gifts of Cape Dutch furniture are still part of JAG’s collection (p 28), as is Florence’s gift of a lace collection. The latter, however, was largely

ignored until the late 1980s, when members of the Witwatersrand Lace Guild assisted in cataloguing, repairing and cleaning the lace prior to placing it on display (Griffiths 1993).

The furniture and lace collections have both been considered closed (not actively pursued) since 1994, when JAG issued a policy document analysing its different collections, indicating which were closed, and what the future collecting focuses should be (JAG 1994). The highly regarded Japanese print collection of some 200 works (Paton 1991) (p 29) has also been considered closed since 1994, as well as the oriental ceramics collection of some 100 pieces (p 29). Both were consolidated during Hendriks’ directorship in the 1950s and early 1960s. Both today are extraneous to JAG’s core policy, but nevertheless they remain superb assets which enhance JAG’s collection and exhibition profile.

Perhaps JAG’s most important closed collection is the contemporary international one started by Nel Erasmus. When Erasmus became director in 1966, she announced that JAG’s future policy would be to continue buying ‘only the best South African works’ but it would not specialise in South African art ‘because it is felt that other South African galleries and museums are doing this’. Her focus would be on acquiring ‘suitable overseas art as the means allow’ (The Star, 28 April 1966). Sculptures by Henry Moore were acquired (p 32) and, in the early 1970s, possibly Erasmus’ most famous acquisition, a Picasso drawing of a harlequin (p 33), partly funded by the then newly formed Friends of the Johannesburg Art Gallery. It caused a huge controversy and was the best public relations exercise the gallery could have hoped for. Also acquired under Erasmus’

directorship were American colour-field paintings by Jules Olitski and Helen Frankenthaler, while her successor Pat Senior continued the focus with works by Alexander Calder, Kenneth Noland (p 30), Dan Flavin, Donald Judd and numerous additions to the print collection (p30). Later a Francis Bacon was added (p 33) and in 1996, with the aid of funds from the Anglo American Johannesburg Centenary Trust, two highly important pieces by Marcel Duchamp and Salvador Dalí (p 31) were added to this collection, demonstrating that even with a focused policy, there should be sufficient flexibility and awareness to enhance existing closed collections.

The principal focus of the 1994 collecting policy document is the same today as it was 16 years ago: to consolidate the South African collections. These are made up of traditional items, modernist twentieth-century art (particularly that of previously marginalised black artists) and contemporary art, including international artists with South African links, like Marlene Dumas (p 156), and artists from other African countries, like Oluwarotimi (Rotimi) Fani-Kayode (p 157). The purpose of this collecting focus is to build on JAG’s unique strength: it is ideally placed to be a major international centre and archive of South African art, within South Africa. This book should be ample evidence of this possibility as JAG goes into the next centenary.

Endnotes

1 Titles have been omitted throughout the book, except for the Duke of Connaught, in order to cope with the minefield of honours bestowed twice a year by the

King of England. For example, Lane had not been knighted when he first met Florence Phillips in April 1909, but became Sir Hugh Lane in June 1909. Florence Phillips, correctly known as Mrs Lionel Phillips at the time, did not become Lady Phillips until her husband was knighted in January 1912. She was then known as Lady Phillips or Lady Lionel Phillips, never Lady Florence Phillips, a misnomer commonly used today. Similarly, Otto Beit and Edwin Lutyens did not become Sirs until after their involvement with JAG. Furthermore, to distinguish between Florence and Lionel Phillips, their first names are used. So a combination of Florence and Lane, for example, indicates a practical usage, not a sexist prejudice.

Jillian Carman

Jillian Carman is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Johannesburg. She was formerly a curator at the Johannesburg Art Gallery and is the author of Uplifting the colonial Philistine: Florence Phillips and the making of the JohannesburgArt Gallery (Wits University Press, 2006).

LEFT:

The opening of the collection in the South African School of Mines and Technology on 29 November 1910. The Duke of Connaught is in the carriage, Florence Phillips is standing in the centre of the group on the steps and Hugh Lane is to the right of the group.

Photograph: Museum Africa.

BOTTOM LEFT:

Aerial view of Johannesburg Art Gallery, c 1930.

BOTTOM RIGHT: Foundation stone.

TOP

Interior view with Thyrsis by James Havard Thomas (1854-1921) in the foreground. Probably part of a set of photographs commissioned from the photographer Arthur Elliott in 1931.

TOP RIGHT:

Aerial view from the south, showing the east and west wings, designed by Edwin Lutyens, that opened in 1940.

BOTTOM:

Aerial view from the north-west, showing the 1986 extensions designed by Meyer Pienaar and Partners Inc.

LEFT:

LEFT: Antonio Mancini (1852-1930)

Portrait of Florence Phillips, 1909 Oil on canvas, 90.1 x 76.5 cm

RIGHT: Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931)

Portrait of Lionel Phillips, 1903 Oil on canvas, 36.5 x 24 cm

LEFT: William Orpen (1878-1931)

Otto Beit in his study at Belgrave Square, 1913

Oil on canvas, 81.5 x 76.3 cm

RIGHT:

Lawrence Josset (1910-1995)

Edwin Lutyens, after 1935 portrait by Meredith Frampton, c 1935 Engraving, 48 x 34 cm

Handkerchief with needle lace border, French

Early 18th century

34 x 35 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Cape Dutch armoire, 18th century

Donated by Sigismund Neumann

RIGHT:

Detail of the donor’s label and one of the armoire’s escutcheons (key plates)

LEFT:

RIGHT:

Hokusai (1760-1849)

No 52 from the series The hundred poems explained by a nurse, c 1839

Wood-block print, 24 x 36.5 cm

BOTTOM LEFT:

Chinese roof tile

SouenWou-kong, the king of the monkeys, Ming period

Ceramic, 36.5 x 12.5 x 18.5 cm

BOTTOM RIGHT:

Kunimasa (1773-1810)

Geisha playing a samisen (musical instrument), late 16th century

Wood-block print, 36.8 x 24.7 cm

TOP:

Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997)

Crak!, 1964

Offset colour lithograph

48.9 x 70.3 cm

BOTTOM:

Kenneth Noland (1924-2010)

Broken ring, 1978

Oil on canvas, 179.5 x 214.5 cm

TOP:

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)

Boîte (box), 1968

Mixed media multiple, 41.5 x 38.5 x 9.9 cm

BOTTOM:

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

White aphrodisiac telephone, 1936

Modified telephone (mixed media), 18 x 12.5 x 30.5 cm

Henry Moore (1898-1986)

Pointed torso, 1969 Bronze, 63 x 40 x 21 cm

LEFT: Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Tête d’Arlequin II (Harlequin’s head), 1971

Crayon and pastel on paper, 50.2 x 65.2 cm

RIGHT: Francis Bacon (1909-1992)

Study of a portrait of a man, 1969

Oil on canvas, 35.7 x 30.5 cm

SEEDS OF CH ANGE

Bongi Dhlomo

My decision to go back to school, to take up fine art training at Rorke’s Drift, was not influenced by any grand ideas of having seen or met great artists in the area where I grew up. I had been working as a secretary for 18 months. My father was taking me back to work after my first annual leave. We had to take a detour and stop at the Evangelical Lutheran Church Centre in Umpumulo. While waiting for my father to finish his errands, I wandered towards the notice board and saw a handwritten advert calling for applications from students who wanted to come to Rorke’s Drift to study art. This was my introduction to art and its possibilities. I had not made any art before this, but had once in a while seen an occasional white, male artist with an easel painting a section of the Drakensberg range in Bergville. Looking back I know that the amphitheatre created by these mountains had a bearing on my later interest in art.

After completing at Rorke’s Drift in 1979, I was faced with the dilemma of finding employment in this new field I had chosen for myself. In 1981, I finally landed a job with the African Art Centre in Durban as a secretary in the bursaries department of the Institute of Race Relations. It was fortunate that the African Art Centre afforded me opportunities to be involved with art- and craft-makers. I made acquaintance with artists that had studied in Rorke’s Drift before me, and artists that had studied in Ndaleni and

Marianhill. I made many visits to the Durban Art Gallery (DAG) during this period. My contact with the research department of the Institute of Race Relations gave me insights into the social conditions in the country under apartheid. In 1982 I worked on a series of artworks, Forced removals. The series was exhibited in the Art toward social development exhibition during the Culture and resistance festival in Botswana the same year. Later, part of the series was bought by the Killie Campbell Collection (today known as the Campbell Collections of the University of KwaZuluNatal, Durban). I realised for the first time my place in the art world and the possibilities offered by this field I had chosen. In 1983 another artwork was bought by the Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermaritzburg.

I married in 1983 and moved to Johannesburg. In 1984 I started work at the FUBA Gallery. I found that art institutions like the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) were open to the public, but JAG was not as accessible as DAG had been. Whenever I visited JAG, I could not help but compare it to the Durban institution that had in its collection many artists I had come to know in Durban and in Natal (today KwaZulu-Natal). The setting of the displays, the distinguished schools of art production – it was all overwhelming and intimidating. I still felt this way about the institution when its director, Christopher Till, approached me in 1992 to join the Art Gallery Committee (AGC), the body which

makes decisions about JAG’s acquisitions, exhibitions and policies. My first reaction was to question why he was inviting me, the first black person to join the committee. He was at pains to explain why he felt I would contribute to the institution’s growth and transformation.

I began with the above to indicate not just the gaps that we needed to address in the collection, but to indicate the intricate manner in which most black artists of yesteryear came into being. The task of JAG’s AGC of the early 1990s was not easy. I sat at the first meeting with much trepidation: Was this the right step? Had I ‘sold out’? But the deliberations at hand put these doubts out of my mind.

One of the main tasks of the AGC is that of acquiring artworks for the collection. The art that was displayed in the Phillips Room, and the British and seventeenth century Dutch rooms, was all very intimidating and unlike anything we had done in Rorke’s Drift. I came into the AGC with an open mind to learn and to contribute to the tasks, the main one being to look at ‘gaps’ in the collection. Avoiding the use of a more apt term ‘left out/neglected’, because of its negative connotations, the AGC adopted the term ‘gaps’ to indicate the redress in the collection regarding artists that were not represented. Most often these were black artists. The AGC was aware that opening this space as a basis for collecting was likely to open floodgates, as many black artists were absent. It was necessary therefore to

skillfully wade through this difficult task. Other gaps in the collection also needed to be addressed, such as important white artists who had fallen through the cracks during past acquisition processes.

The gap analysis was done concurrent to ongoing acquisitions. There were important artists that had since passed on that were not represented in the collection. There were living artists who had been producing art for a long time that were not represented. There were established, household-name artists who were also not represented in the collection. There was the shift towards acquiring contemporary artworks. There was yet another shift that looked at cultural objects and crafts as works of art. All these collecting areas were vying for attention from the same budget that had formerly looked at a limited acquisition area. The curators of the different sectors of the collection had to work hard to motivate for items on their ‘wish lists’, explaining how they would contribute to the entire collection. The AGC, on the other hand, knowing the urgency of acquiring some items that would otherwise be lost to JAG forever, but also mindful of the overall needs and the limited funds, had the difficult task of turning down some very worthy items in favour of others that filled major gaps in redressing the focus of the collection.

There were numerous artworks collected during this redress phase. There were times when curators brought forward artworks of such value to the collection that the AGC would dispense with the figures and unanimously agree to the acquisition. These were works that the chairperson, the late Professor Alan Crump, referred to as rare finds that had to be part of JAG; works by artists such as John Koenakeefe Mohl (p 133), Gladys Mgudlandlu (p 38), Gerard Sekoto (pp 81, 134), Durant Sihlali (p 39), and other black pioneers. Later there were further acknowledgements and recognition of artists like David Koloane (p 152), who later joined the AGC. Koloane had worked in the 1970s and had continued producing art, moving from figurative collages to abstract expressionism in the mid1980s. The need to show developments with each artist required looking over her/his full career to the present and, where possible, the AGC opted to acquire examples showcasing these developments. This required careful research by the curators as well as assistance, where possible, from the AGC. Artworks that could have been lost to the country were captured in this process, such as drawings and prints by Ezrom Legae (p 38), Julian Motau (p 39), Dumile Feni (pp 140-1), John Muafangejo, Cyprian Shilakoe (pp 40, 147), Vuminkosi Zulu (p 40), George Msimang, Leonard Matsoso (p 41) and many others of this generation.

against the inclusion of crafts and cultural effects in their collections and the art history canon. Fine beaded items were scarce as most had been sold to individual collectors who would later present them for purchase to the highest bidder. During this time many items of cultural significance that had been in use by traditional healers were brought forward for acquisition. The AGC had to make difficult moral decisions to acquire these items that often belonged with the community or the family rather than a storeroom in an art gallery. The argument to acquire rather than lose the items to collectors abroad always won the day, as it was clear that many sellers wanted a return on their purchases and had little or no sentiment about such items remaining in South Africa. In the financial year of 1991-2 the position of Curator of African Art was established and the southern African traditional art collection grew from strength to strength. Today JAG boasts some of the finest items internationally in this genre (p 41).

The winds of change were blowing all the time in the country. City governments, like many other structures of government, were heeding the call to embrace changes. I joined the AGC about the time Johannesburg became the Greater Johannesburg Transitional Metropolitan Council (GJTMC). This was a very interesting period in the life of art-making, art appreciation and art definitions in the city and in the country. Shortly before I joined the AGC, JAG had embarked on defining what kinds of art-making had to be included in its collections. Items formerly considered craft – the beaded old Ndebele dolls, aprons and veils, Zulu and Northern Sotho (Pedi) beadwork and many other fine cultural artefacts – were acquired as the nature of what constituted art in South Africa shifted and the collection expanded to reflect this. The line between fine art and craft blurred as institutions and scholars argued for and

During the period from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s many changes in art production took place. The Thupelo Art Workshop Project was born out of cultural exchanges between similar workshops in the USA and in Britain. The workshops gave an opportunity to many black artists who had not been exposed to working on large canvases or in abstract expressionist styles to explore the medium and the freedom that came with working in open spaces. This was viewed as a revolution brought to bear on black artists by ‘outside’ forces. The artists that took part in these workshops were mostly those who had studied in Rorke’s Drift and other community art centres in the urban areas of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. A work by Dumisani Mabaso from one of the these workshops was one of the first abstract paintings by a black artist to be acquired by JAG.

It was during this transitional period that a new wave of traditional artworks emerged. Glass beads were scarce and expensive, and unaffordable to artists working in a beading medium. Needing to continue supplying their wares to users in traditional settings, the artists adopted cheaper and more readily available materials to produce new interpretations of items that had previously been made with glass beads. These items presented a conundrum to collectors of traditional glass beadwork. The AGC was presented with pieces like Ndebele aprons made in ‘plastic appliqué’, or a combination of plastic, plastic beads and brightly coloured wool and other trinkets. However, ignoring the new methods and expecting traditional-type art to remain in a timeless vacuum is contrary to the reassessment of southern African art history. This new type of art was seen as representing important developments in the artmakers’ careers, similar to such developments in artists who worked in western-type painting and sculpture. These artworks were important additions to JAG’s collection.

The return to the country of the Brenthurst Collection became one of the highlights of this period. The recognition of the importance of this collection and its place in South African art production was a huge milestone for JAG and for the country. It felt good to be part of such an important episode in the life of JAG. It is proper to give credit to the corporate citizenry that has come on board to assist JAG to access some of the artworks and collections that would otherwise have been lost to the country. Anglo American has played a significant role in this regard. It is hoped that other corporate citizens will emulate this philanthropic example and continue with support to institutions such as JAG to keep the country’s heritage in South Africa.

In 1994 the country went to the polls to vote in the first democratic elections, and the African National Congress (ANC) took control of the Johannesburg city council. The council has always had two seats on the seven-person AGC, its members representing the citizens who, in effect, own the JAG collection, and whose money is used to make purchases. ANC councillors started to attend AGC meetings. For many, this was a completely new experience and AGC members had to painstakingly explain the process and rationale behind art acquisitions. Once the process was understood, as well as the need for the city to keep treasures for future generations, councillors participated fully in AGC deliberations.

JAG has been in existence for a 100 years. It has undergone changes to its initial building structure, with extensions being added to the original 1915 building in 1940 and 1986. It has undergone changes in its approach to collecting and in its staff complement. Today there are more black members of staff compared to 20 years ago. There are changes in JAG’s audiences as well, with black people and young members of the public becoming frequent visitors to JAG. JAG is making huge efforts to integrate Joubert Park and its users with the building in their midst. It is an important player in the visual arts in this country and the African continent. JAG’s leadership role in developing its collections has led to many items being requested on loan by institutions around the world. The AGC’s service extends beyond the local Johannesburg community to the African continent and the world at large.

As JAG celebrates 100 years of service to the Johannesburg community we look back to the many milestones that the institution has achieved over this period. Like the

country, institutions have had to deal with birth-pains as new ideas have had to supplant old ones. It has been a journey of partnerships between the art world and the city, the institution and the public. The time I have spent serving on the AGC has taught me many things about art, but most importantly about change and transformation. We look forward to the next hundred years of JAG when the seeds planted during this centenary will have grown into big trees that will inform future generations about their heritage. JAG continues to be the custodian of these seeds and memories and I count myself lucky to have been part of its journey since the early 1990s.

Bongi Dhlomo

Bongi Dhlomo is an artist, curator, writer and educator who has played a pivotal role in the development of the visual arts in South Africa since the early 1980s. She has been a member of the Johannesburg Art Gallery Committee since 1992.

TOP LEFT:

Gladys Mgudlandlu (1925-1979)

Study of birds, 1965

Ink on brown paper, 24.5 x 74.5 cm

BOTTOM LEFT:

Ezrom Legae (1938-1999)

Man and his bird, 1983

Pencil, conté and pastel on paper, 100 x 230 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Durant Basi Sihlali (1935-2004)

Pimville, 1969

Watercolour on cardboard, 38.6 x 50.7 cm

RIGHT:

Julian Motau (1948-1968)

Township scene, 1966

Oil on canvas, 61 x 50.8 cm

remembrance, 1971 Woodcut

paper, 28.5 x 45 cm

Print in portfolio of 25 prints, undated Linocut ed. 8/50, 30 x 30 cm

TOP: Cyprian Shilakoe (1946-1972) My childhood

BOTTOM: Vuminkosi Zulu (1948-1996)

TOP:

Leonard Matsoso (1949-)

Human head and buck skeleton in a landscape, 1971

Drawing in ink and pencil, 27.2 x 44.4 cm

BOTTOM:

Artist unrecorded

Xikhigelo (headrest), Swazi

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 14 x 45 x 8 cm

BECOMING HI STORIC

Jillian Carman an d Sh eree Li ssoos

The centenary of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) gives us an opportunity to look back over JAG’s life so far, perhaps with a sense of pride, even fondness; or outrage, or regret at what might have been; but mostly with a sense of gratitude that such a valuable visual archive is still being held in trust for the citizens of Johannesburg, who are the owners of this heritage institution. We are also likely to be surprised at how JAG’s collections in 2010 are so radically different from JAG as she was in 1910. This chapter looks at the first 50 years of JAG’s life, in an attempt to understand not only the nature of the collections, but also the nature of Johannesburg’s citizens, visitors and stakeholders.

In 1910 the citizens of Johannesburg were given a Municipal Gallery of Modern Art. It did not have a permanent home yet; it had to wait until 1915 for that. But its reputation in London, the centre of the British Empire, more than compensated for its temporary residence in the South African School of Mines and Technology. It was considered more avantgarde than any public art collection in Britain at that time, and was described by the Duke of Connaught at its opening in Johannesburg on Tuesday 29 November 1910 (p 24), as ‘the first notable art collection in South Africa’ (TheTransvaal Leader, 30 November 1910). Furthermore, its subsequent home in Joubert Park (pp 24-5), designed by Edwin Lutyens (p 27), is today internationally renowned as the only Lutyens museum1 built by one of the most important architects of the early twentieth century.

The collection, in 1910, consisted of 130 items, representing the best in modern (contemporary) art and its antecedents in the nineteenth century.2 The curator was Hugh Lane, a prominent Anglo-Irish art dealer, who had achieved renown – and a knighthood – for putting together a modern art collection for Dublin, which opened in early 1908. One had to travel to the colonies (Ireland was also considered a colony) in order to see modern art, lamented art critics when the core JAG collection was displayed at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London before departing for South Africa. Public art collections in England at that time were controlled by conservative advisers. The National Gallery in London, for example, which governed the Tate, only bought works by dead artists.

The original foundation collection was started in April 1909 when Florence Phillips (p 26), wife of Randlord (as Johannesburg mining magnates were known) Lionel Phillips (p 26), met Hugh Lane in London. Lane persuaded her to collect modern art for Johannesburg and within days the first acquisitions were made: three works by Philip Wilson Steer (1860-1942) (p 48). Over the next sixteen months the core collection was put together by Lane, independent of a board of trustees, and with little interference from the Randlords who provided the funds. They had no interest in nor, it seems, understanding of modern art. Their far more valuable private art collections consisted largely of Old Masters from the Italian Renaissance, and seventeenth-century

Dutch and eighteenth-century English schools. Because of this distance from their own tastes – both in the nature and the comparative cheapness – they were generally prepared to let an agent operate without interference in buying inexpensive art for the colony from which their wealth derived. And furthermore, the public acknowledgement would be to their advantage. (Their lack of monetary investment in JAG, with the expectation that they would be honoured for years thereafter, had been a criticism levelled at the Randlords by the labour wing of the Johannesburg town council.)

Yet despite their meagre funding, the Randlords were initially reluctant to invest in the collection. A permanent building had not yet been found, and they were suspicious of Lane, a canny art dealer, who might dupe them into paying for worthless items. The notoriously stingy Joseph Robinson gave nothing, while Julius Wernher appears to have been one of the few – perhaps the only – donor to interfere with what Lane spent his money on, and he did not want modern art. Four nineteenth-century items were eventually negotiated at competitive prices, including Théodore Géricault’s (1791-1824) The passage of the ravine, considered a major example of French romantic art at the time, but later attracting some doubts about its attribution (Carman 1984). Alongside Florence and Lionel Phillips, who were not the wealthiest of the Randlords, Otto Beit (p 27) was the most

supportive of Lane and certainly the most generous of the Randlord donors.

The fact that Lane could collect in a relatively unfettered manner was both unique for a public institution and hugely advantageous for realising a themed and coherent collection. In his own words, Lane’s aim was to assemble ‘fourscore or so of the best examples of Modern Art’, using ‘an extreme catholicity [wide-ranging] of taste … in the choice of pictures’, in order to present a lesson in the history of modern art for South African students. He was, however, a product of his time in that he considered the centre of modern art to be the centre of the British Empire, and the ‘best examples of Modern Art’ to be English early twentiethcentury. This is hardly something that would recommend him to present-day art history students, who are probably more aware than Lane ever was of the avant-garde art scene in Paris around 1910: of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Georges Braque (1882-1963) and cubism. Lane’s inclusion of indifferent nineteenth-century English artists and his exclusion of major artists like John Constable (17761837) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) also seem as unfortunate to the twenty-first century viewer as they were to Johannesburg artist and writer, George Salisbury Smithard, whose critiques of a century ago still remain among the most perceptive commentaries on JAG’s collection (Smithard 1910-11).

For his time, however, Lane’s concept of modern art and its origins was radical. He did not follow the British chauvinist interpretation in which no foreign, and particularly no French, influences were admitted into the canon of British modern art. According to theories expounded by authors such as Wynford Dewhurst (Impressionist painting, 1904), French Impressionism in fact originated in Britain through the influence of works by Constable and Turner – displayed

in the National Gallery in London – on Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Alfred Sisley (1839-99) and Claude Monet (1840-1926) (pp 48-9), who sought refuge in London from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. British art, according to this argument, continued in a pure national tradition, stemming from Constable and Turner, while French art across the channel went off at a tangent. And not a desirable one, in the view of the National Gallery trustees, of whom one, Alfred de Rothschild, said the Impressionist paintings lent to the gallery by Lane in 1913 would disgrace a pavement artist (Conlin 2006: 131).3

Lane counteracted Anglo art history jingoism by curating a British school of artworks in which the modern component comprised painters like Steer, Augustus John (1878-1961) (p 49),4 John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) (p 50), Laura Knight (1877-1970) (p 50), Spencer Gore (1878-1914) (pp 50-1), Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) (pp 50-1) and the sculptor Jacob Epstein (1880-1959) (pp 50-1) who rebelled against a moribund academic style and looked to France for inspiration. Apart from Thefringeofthemoor (1874) (p 52) by John Everett Millais (1829-96), there seems little continuity between Lane’s choices of British nineteenth-century art, for example William Powell Frith’s narratives (p 52), and the early twentieth-century British moderns. But there are some striking similarities between the British moderns and the nineteenth- to early twentiethcentury French and Dutch art that Lane chose for Johannesburg: for example, between Gore’s Applehayes (1913) (pp 50-1) and Monet’s Springtime (1873) (p 49); John’s The childhood of Pyramus (1908) (p 49) and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes’ (1824-98) The source (pp 52-3); Epstein’s MrsMcEvoy (c 1910) (pp 50-1) and Auguste Rodin’s (18401917) Miss Fairfax (c 1907). The visual evidence is there: British modern art owed more to European prototypes than its own national school. This is the radical interpretation

of British modern art a hundred years ago for which Lane was renowned.

There was no South African school of art in the foundation collection; the only local artist represented was Anton van Wouw (1862-1945) in the Statuary section (p 55). South Africa was not considered advanced enough to have its own school of (white) artists, and the principal purpose of giving Johannesburg a gallery of modern art, according to Lane, was to train and inspire young colonialists through access to a collection that was the equivalent of any that one could see in Europe. This, Lane confidently stated, ‘will have the effect of making the new nation artistic’ (JAG 1910: Prefatory Notice). The main gaps that Lane identified as needing ‘to be filled up before the collection may be considered representative’ were works by ‘Courbet, Corot, Daubigny, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Israels, Matthew Maris, Whistler, and the representative works of the best of the Pre-Raphaelite School’ (JAG 1910: Prefatory Notice) .

The expansion of the French and Dutch impressionist collections had to wait another 30 to 40 years before having their gaps filled, but the British collection benefited shortly afterwards with the 1912 donation from Sigismund Neumann of Pre-Raphaelite and related work, put together in London by Robert Ross (who succeeded Lane as London based director of JAG) and Henry Tonks (JAG 1912). And it does, indeed, represent some of the best examples of the Pre-Raphaelite School, with works such as Walter Deverell’s (1827-54) The Irish vagrants (c 1853-4) (p 57), and Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s (1828-82) Regina Cordium (1864) (pp 567). The British modern school (p 58) was also augmented at that time, and again some 70 to 80 years later (p 57, and top far right), making this one of the most significant of JAG’s historic collections. Fittingly so, as it represents

the type of modern art that was at the core of what Lane curated for the foundation collection.

Well before 1920, the residue of Randlord funds had dried up. The Lutyens building had opened in an incomplete state in Joubert Park towards the end of 1915, without ceremony and without Florence Phillips, who expressed such disgust with the council’s lack of interest in JAG that she refused to attend the opening. The Johannesburg based curator, Edmund Gyngell, who was appointed in a part-time temporary capacity soon after the collection opened in November 1910, had no powers in the choice of acquisitions (if and when they were made) and had to defer to the Art Gallery Committee (AGC) in all matters. The post remained parttime and temporary until the 1930s, and the gallery did not receive a municipal purchasing budget until the 1920s, when it was described as a ‘contribution to the Art Gallery Committee’.5 There was no proper acquisition policy in place, and occasional purchases and the acceptance of gifts seemed to be on the whim of donors and the AGC. A London based buying committee that included the directors of the Tate and National Gallery and Henry Tonks of the Slade, advised on purchases during the late 1920s to early 1930s,6 but, according to a later director, Anton Hendriks, in 1947, ‘the results were a complete failure … the agents did not know the Council’s collection and the paintings did not fit in, and some were duplicated, and others were so bad that they have never been exhibited (council minutes, 25 March 1947). This was not an entirely fair criticism as the purchases had included some good British modern works by Gore, Sickert and Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944).

During JAG’s lean period up to the late 1930s there were, however, three highlights. The first was the bequest in 1934 of 551 prints from Howard Pim, a late member of the AGC. The Pim Bequest established JAG’s print cabinet as

one of the most important in South Africa. It covers printmaking from around 1500 onwards and includes engravings, woodcuts and etchings by some of the premier practitioners in the field, such as Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) (p 59) and Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69) (p 60). It has a wide representation of English ‘painter-engravers’ like Francis Seymour Haden (1818-1910), and an important collection of James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s (1834-1903) etchings (p 61). The print cabinet has continued to be one of JAG’s major collections and has been consistently added to, from etchings by Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) (p 61) to pop artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923-97) (p 30).

The second highlight in the 1930s was the eventual commitment of the municipal council to add two pavilions to the Lutyens building, which had never been completed, to Lutyens’ original plans. Yet even with these new pavilions the building remained incomplete. Lutyens worked on the plans again, updating his original 1911 concept, and the dramatically increased space opened in 1940.

The third highlight was the appointment of Anton Hendriks as director in 1937, a position he held until his retirement in the early 1960s. He was the first professional Johannesburg based director to be appointed and he effected major developments in the collection. His policies for the future of the gallery were tabled at council in July 1946, when he declared that:

A modern art gallery … has an active function to perform as an educational institution in the life of the city. In order to convert the Johannesburg Art Gallery from a static show place to an institution which will fulfil this function as part of the city life, the existing collections, which are merely the foundations of the more representative collections of the future, must be built up and completed according to a general

plan, and new exhibits must be shown from time to time (council minutes, 30 July 1946).

In the same report he set out his development plan, dividing the collection into English School, French School, nineteenthcentury Dutch School (Netherlands and Belgian), rest of Europe, and South African painting. All but the last, South African painting, had been present in Hugh Lane’s original collection. Of the South African collection Hendriks said:

It has been the policy of the Art Gallery Committee, for the last few years, to build up a collection showing the best and most significant aspects of South African painting, and a small but fairly representative collection is being formed. The educational value of such a collection displayed next to the best European painting cannot be over-estimated (council minutes, 30 July 1946).

Hendriks consolidated what Lane had started in JAG’s foundation collection: he set out to fill the gaps, focusing particularly on the French collection in order to create an instructive overview, for art students and visitors alike, of the principal art movements in France of the early twentieth century. He acquired works on paper where oils would have been unaffordable – such as a Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) drawing (p 62), an Edgar Degas (1834-1917) pastel and etching (p 63), a Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) lithograph (p 63) and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) (p 64) lithographs. To illustrate the cubist style, he acquired a 1910-11 portrait by Albert Gleizes (1881-1953) (p 65), a lesser known and more affordable artist than the cubist giants Picasso and Braque. Similarly, a Paul Signac (1863-1935) painting was a more affordable option than a Georges Seurat (1859-91) neo-impressionist one. Hendriks also purchased beyond the base which Lane had set, adding to JAG’s collection more recent items, such as a remarkable contemporary painting

by Fernand Léger (1881-1955) (p 68) and prints by Picasso and other modern French artists. The French collection was also temporarily augmented by the loan from the 1940s to 1960s of the privately owned Hague collection, which included paintings by Cézanne, Honoré Daumier (1808-79), Van Gogh, Pissarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). Apparently Hendriks tried to purchase the Cézanne, but the municipality refused to pay the fee and the work was withdrawn with the rest of the collection.

One of Hendriks’ greatest achievements was the establishment of the seventeenth-century Dutch collection when he procured the Eduard Houthakker gift in the late 1940s, coincidentally about the time the National Party came to power. Houthakker was the brother of the renowned Amsterdam dealer in seventeenth-century Dutch art, Bernard Houthakker, from whom the paintings had been sourced (p 70 top, p 71 right). This was a deliberate move to accommodate the cultural heritage of Dutch-origin South Africans, who had felt alienated by the British emphasis of the foundation collection. Hendriks astutely added to the collection during the 1950s, acquiring, for example, the exceptional Pieter Claesz (1597-1660) Stilllifewithacrab(p 70 bottom).

An exciting development regarding one of the Houthakker gift’s anonymous portraits occurred in 1991, when the Netherlands Institute for Art History in The Hague, which had been researching with JAG the public holdings of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings in South Africa, alerted JAG to the long-lost companion portrait to the Houthakker portrait. With the aid of the Anglo American Johannesburg Centenary Trust, the portrait was purchased at auction and reunited with its companion. The husband and wife, who were painted in 1629 by Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy (1588-1650/56), are now once again displayed side by

side under their names: Laurens Joosten Baack and Diewer Jacobsdr van Harencarspel (p 71).7

When Hendriks presented JAG’s new policy directions to council in July 1946, he announced that JAG had been building up a collection of South African art for the previous few years, and that it had a small but fairly representative collection. Works by South African artists had, in fact, slowly been collected since 1916, when Lionel Phillips presented to

JAG Konakontes,SouthWestAfrica by Robert Gwelo Goodman (1871-1939), the first painting by a South African to enter the collection. By 1932 the JAG owned four further donations of Goodman paintings (p 72), as well as Bertha Everard’s (1873-1965) Peace of winter, Transvaal and Willem Hermanus Coetzer’s (1900-83) The dusty shelf (1930) (p 75).

Under Hendriks the emerging South African collection grew and consolidated into a small but fine collection. He acquired works by an older generation of South African artists who should have been in the collection at, or soon after, its inception, such as Frans Oerder (1867-1944) (p 72) and Pieter Wenning (1873-1921) (p 73). And he recognised the importance of contemporary South African artists such as Jacob Hendrik Pierneef (1886-1957), (pp 73, 127) Maggie Laubser (1886-1973) (p 74), Moses Kottler (1892-1977) (p 74), Ruth Everard Haden (1904-92) (p 76), Maud Sumner (1902-57) (p 77), Gregoire Boonzaier (1909-2005) (p 79), Walter Battiss (1906-82) (pp 79, 145), Alexis Preller (191175) (pp 80-1, 145) – and Irma Stern (1894-1966) (pp 78, 132), who had studied in Germany with Max Pechstein (1881-1955) (p 69). He also purchased, in 1940, the first work by a black artist to enter JAG’s collection, Yellow houses: a street in Sophiatown (1940) (p 81) by Gerard Sekoto (1913-93).8 All of these artists, as well as works by Coetzer, Goodman, Hugo Naude (1869-1983) (p 75) and Van Wouw’s President Kruger in exile (1907) (pp 54-5) were included in a major international travelling exhibition of South African contemporary art that opened at the Tate in September 1948 and toured to the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Canada and the USA before returning to Cape Town in November 1949 (SAAA 1948-9). This was the first major showcasing of South African art to the world, and the fact that the selection committee chose works by artists represented in JAG attests to the calibre of Hendriks’ curatorial choices.

By 1960, JAG had a collection that was similar in concept to Lane’s of 1910, in that it had defined collection areas, well-chosen works, and an educational purpose. But it was far more than that. Hendriks had pushed for the development of the collection beyond Lane’s groundwork in order to maximise its educational potential, and he had put together a fine, small South African collection to achieve this. Now the aspiring artist could compare (primarily white) South African art to quality European painting, instead of merely trying to absorb foreign art without a local reference point. Hendriks had turned JAG into an active educational institute by 1960 for art students of all races. Cecil Skotnes recalls that his Polly Street students regularly visited JAG in the 1950s, their access facilitated by Hendriks. Access to the Africana Museum, however, was denied to them.9 JAG may have been totally inadequate in terms of giving black people a sense of ownership and identity with the collection: one painting by one black artist between 1940 and the early 1970s was hardly likely to encourage this. But the attempts to provide access for all races to the collection at that time are worth noting.

Endnotes

1 A gallery housing a permanent, public collection is not a commercial outlet. It is the same as a museum devoted to art, and ‘gallery’ in this context can be used interchangeably with ‘museum’.

2 The illustrated catalogue accompanying the opening of the collection in 1910 lists 127 items, but there were in fact a few more, including a William Orpen portrait of Otto Beit which still had to be painted (catalogue number 87a). ‘Modern’ in the early twentieth century had a similar cutting-edge meaning that ‘contemporary’ has today, while ‘contemporary’ then meant indifferent art that was made at the same time as the current calendar year. Information on the early years of JAG, its founders, collection, building and historical context, can be found in JAG (1910), Smithard (1910-11), Gyngell (1915), Gregory (1921), Hendriks (1958), Gutsche (1966), Erasmus (1968, 1970, 1975), Lissoos (1986), Carman (1988a, 2005, 2006), Stevenson (2002) and Goldin and Keene (2004). For the subsequent development of JAG see Carman (2003). On the Lutyens building, see McTeague (1984) and Miller (2002).

4 The John displayed with JAG’s foundation collection, The way to the sea (or Decorative group) (1908), was lent to JAG by Lane and is today in Dublin City Art Gallery

The Hugh Lane (formerly the Hugh Lane Gallery). JAG’s The childhood of Pyramus (1908) was purchased in 1912 by JAG’s London based director, Robert Ross, from Clive and Vanessa Bell, using funds donated by Max Michaelis.

5 Details of the curator’s salary and the purchasing budget are in the annual estimates of the municipal council from 1911/12 onwards. A brief historic overview of the JAG funding is given in council minutes, 22 November 1949.

6 Johannesburg Art Gallery I: correspondence, purchase lists September 1929-July 1930. Tate Gallery archive.

7 For the changing attributions of the female portrait and the final identification of the artist and companion piece, see Carman (1988b, 1994) and JAG (1997: 41-4).

8 No further works by black artists were purchased until the early 1970s (Carman 1988a: 207).

9 Cecil Skotnes in conversation with the author, 7 March 2001. See Carman (2003) for an analysis of open access to institutions in Johannesburg under apartheid.

Jillian Carman

3 Lane withdrew his loan of impressionist paintings from the Hugh Lane Gallery in 1913 when the Dublin municipal council refused to authorise the building of an Edwin Lutyens museum. He then lent the collection to the National Gallery in London, where the trustees were initially reluctant to display it. The paintings were still there when he drowned aboard the Lusitania in 1915, leaving an unwitnessed codicil to his will, which cast doubt on whether Dublin or London were to have the collection. Until the late twentieth century there was ongoing conflict between the National Gallery and the Hugh Lane Gallery over ownership of the paintings. The most recent account is in Dawson (2008).

Sheree Lissoos

Sheree Lissoos has been the Curator: Historic Collections at the Johannesburg Art Gallery since 2002. She was formerly the Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings Curator at JAG between 1984 and 1987, and Guest Curator in 1991. Prior to JAG, she was a Lecturer in Art History at the University of the Witwatersrand between 1981 and 1984.

LEFT:

Philip Wilson Steer (1860-1942)

A Chelsea window, 1909

Oil on canvas, 121 x 90 cm

RIGHT:

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)

The forest, 1870

Oil on canvas, 78.8 x 97.9 cm

TOP LEFT:

Alfred Sisley (1839-1899)

Riverbank at Veneu, 1881

Oil on canvas, 60.3 x 81.3 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Claude Monet (1840-1926)

Springtime, 1873

Oil on canvas, 60.5 x 81 cm

LEFT:

John Augustus (1878-1961)

The childhood of Pyramus, 1908

Oil on canvas, 120.6 x 150.5 cm

LEFT:

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)

The Brenva Glacier, 1909

Oil on canvas, 92 x 117 cm

BOTTOM LEFT:

Laura Knight (1877-1970)

Boys (Newlyn, Cornwall), c 1909

Oil on canvas, 153.4 x 183.5 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Spencer Gore (1878-1914)

Applehayes, 1913

Oil on canvas, 50.8 x 61.2 cm

BOTTOM RIGHT:

Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942)

Corner of St Catherine Street and the old arcades, Dieppe, 1910

Oil on canvas, 57.8 x 50 cm

FAR RIGHT:

Jacob Epstein (1880-1959)

Mrs McEvoy, c 1910

Marble, 47.7 x 26 x 45.3 cm

LEFT:

John Everett Millais (1829-1896)

The fringe of the moor, 1874

Oil on canvas, 136 x 213 cm

BOTTOM LEFT:

William Powell Frith (1819-1909)

The pulse, the husband, 1869

Oil on canvas, 107 x 128 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Jacob Maris (1837-1899)

Gathering seaweed, near Scheveningen

Undated

Oil on canvas, 48.3 x 78.4 cm

TOP FAR RIGHT:

Henri Harpignies (1819-1916)

The ravine, c 1869

Oil on canvas, 46.2 x 38.1 cm

BOTTOM RIGHT:

Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) Bouquet, 1902

Oil on canvas, 31.5 x 38.1 cm

BOTTOM FAR RIGHT:

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898)

The source, undated

Oil on canvas, 40.3 x 32.6 cm

Becoming historic images

TOP: Eugène Boudin (1874-1952)

Regatta at Argenteuil, 1866

Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 73 cm

TOP RIGHT: Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

Miss Fairfax, c 1907

Marble, 54.2 x 58 x 46.9 cm

BOTTOM RIGHT: Anton Van Wouw (1862-1945)

President Kruger in exile, 1907

Bronze, 25.8 x 48.27 cm

FAR RIGHT: Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

Eve, c 1881

Bronze, 75.6 x 22.5 x 26.5 cm

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

Regina Cordium (Queen of Hearts), 1860 Oil on panel, 25.4 x 20.3 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Robert Martineau (1826-1869)

A girl with a cat, 1860 Oil on panel, 30.1 x 22.6 cm

TOP FAR RIGHT:

Spencer Gore (1878-1914)

Promenade and box at the Alhambra Theatre, c 1910 Pencil and ink on paper, 35.3 x 25.4 cm

Walter Deverell (1827-1854)

The Irish vagrants, c 1853-4 Oil on canvas, 63.4 x 77.2 cm

LEFT:

RIGHT:

TOP LEFT:

Walter Bayes (1869-1956)

The open door, c 1911

Oil on canvas, 70.9 x 61 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Harold Gilman (1876-1919)

The reapers – Sweden, 1912

Oil on canvas, 51 x 61 cm

RIGHT:

Robert Bevan (1865-1925)

Culme Bridge, Hemyock, 1916-17

Oil on canvas, 71 x 58.4 cm

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)

Melencolia 1, 1514

Engraving, 24 x 18.7 cm

TOP:

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)

Rembrandt’s mother, 1628

Etching, 6.6 x 6.3 cm

BOTTOM:

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1699)

The three crosses, 1653

Etching, 36.95 x 45 cm

LEFT:

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

The lime-burner, 1859

Etching, 25.5 x 17.5 cm

RIGHT:

Francisco de Goya (1746-1828)

The Chinchillas, No 50 from the series Los Caprichos, 1797-8

Etching, 17.4 x 12.3 cm

LEFT: Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

Inmate of the almshouse (Portrait of an old man), 1881-3

Black and white chalk on paper, 44 x 29 cm

RIGHT: George Breitner (1857-1923) Self portrait, 1882

Oil on canvas, 62.5 x 37.5 cm

LEFT:

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

The bathers (large print), 1896-8

Colour lithograph, 42.3 x 51.9 cm

BOTTOM LEFT:

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

Mary Cassatt in the Louvre, 1879-80

Etching and drypoint, 35.5 x 26.9 cm

BOTTOM RIGHT:

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

Two dancers, c 1898-1905

Pastel on paper, 50 x 35 cm

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)

Woman combing her hair, No 7 from the series Elles, 1896

Colour lithograph, 52.4 x 39.5 cm

RIGHT:

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)

Woman in a corset, No 9 from the series Elles, 1896

Colour lithograph, 53 x 40 cm

LEFT:

Portrait of a woman, c 1910-11

Oil on canvas, 100.2 x 73.5 cm

(1884-1920)

Portrait of Mrs van Muyden, 1915 Pencil on paper, 43 x 25.6 cm

LEFT: Albert Gleizes (1881-1953)

RIGHT; Amedeo Modigliani

Paul Signac (1863-1935)

Leaving the harbour, La Rochelle, 1912

Oil on canvas, 71.4 x 100.2 cm

with arms raised, 1930

x27 cm

33 cm

LEFT:

Aristide Maillol (1861-1944)

Bather

Bronze, 82 x 34

RIGHT:

André Derain (1880-1954) Girl with red hair, 1926-8 Oil on canvas, 41 x

Fernand Léger (1881-1955)

Composition with two birds, 1947 Oil on canvas, 60 x 92 cm

LEFT: Max Pechstein (1881-1955)

And lead us not into temptation, No 8 from the series

Das Vater Unser (The Our Father), 1921 Woodcut, 39.8 x 29.8 cm

RIGHT: Georg Grosz (1893-1959) Dancing, 1925

Pencil and black ink on paper, 56 x 48.8 cm

A musical party, 1649

Oil on oak panel, 41.4 x 53.1 cm

Still life with a crab, 1651 Oil on oak panel, 34.5 x 47.1 cm

TOP:

Antonie Palamedesz (1601-1673)

BOTTOM:

Pieter Claesz (1597-1660)

LEFT:

Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy (1588-1650/56)

Portrait of Laurens Joosten Baack, 1629

Oil on oak panel, 121.2 x 89.9 cm

RIGHT:

Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy (1588-1650/56)

Portrait of Diewer Jacobsdr van Harencarspel, 1629

Oil on oak panel, 122 x 89.5 cm

TOP:

Robert Gwelo Goodman (1871-1939)

The New Goch Gold Mine, 1917 Oil on canvas, 51 x 60.4 cm

BOTTOM:

Frans Oerder (1867-1944)

A view of the Rand in the early days, 1899 Oil on canvas, 49 x 96 cm

TOP:

Pieter Wenning (1873-1921)

A winter’s day, 1915

Oil on plywood, 55 x 72 cm

BOTTOM:

Jacob Hendrik Pierneef (1886-1957)

Moçambique, 1926

Oil on canvas, 43 x 58 cm

Portrait of Kalie, 1925

Oil on cardboard, 48.6 x 36.7 cm

Moses Kottler (1892 – 1977)

Meidjie, 1926

wood, 155.5 x 34.5 x 31.4 cm

LEFT:

Maggie Laubser (1886-1973)

RIGHT:

Cypress

Willem Hermanus Coetzer (1900-1983)

The dusty shelf, 1930 Oil on canvas, 49.5 x 61 cm

BOTTOM:

Hugo Naude (1869-1941)

Table Mountain, undated Oil on canvas on board, 41.2 x 61.5 cm

TOP:

Ruth Everard Haden (1904-1992)

The rocky gorge, early 1930s Oil on canvas, 116 x 89.5 cm

Maud Sumner (1902-1957)

Portrait of the artist, 1936 Oil on canvas, 79.8 x 64 cm

LEFT: Irma Stern (1894-1966)

Portrait of a young girl (Barbara), 1944

Oil on canvas, 61.5 x 50.8 cm

RIGHT:

Freida Lock (1902-1962)

Interior, a woman sewing, 1947

Oil on canvas, 60.9 x 51 cm

TOP:

Gregoire Boonzaier (1909-2005)

The yellow book, 1948 Oil on canvas, 61 x 51 cm

BOTTOM: Walter Battiss (1906-1982)

The eternal palace, 1948 Oil on canvas, 76 x 91.5 cm

LEFT: Alexis Preller (1911-1975) Fishermen of Bel Ombre, 1949 Oil on canvas, 60 x 75 cm

RIGHT: Gerard Sekoto (1913-1993)

Yellow houses: a street in Sophiatown, 1940 Oil on canvas, 50.8 x 74.5 cm

FILLING TH E SP ACES/CONTESTING THE CANONS

Nessa Leibhammer

In 1983, on his appointment as Director of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), Christopher Till stated that it was a grave omission that JAG, one of the leading art museums in South Africa, had no southern African traditional art collection and was therefore unrepresentative of the majority of people in the region. Till did not mean that no museum in the country housed southern African traditional art, but rather that such items tended to be collected by natural history museums like the South African Museum, where they were categorised and studied as ethnographic. They were not considered art.

FROM ARTEFACT TO ART

Traditional southern African material had been collected and housed in national institutions from around the early nineteenth century. However, when general purpose museums began to split their collections into differentiated institutions, new locations were guided by the prejudices of the time. Art museums – also known as galleries – were reserved for art from Europe or made in a western mode, like painting and sculpture or, in the case of craft, items like Venetian lace or Cape Dutch cupboards. Artworks of oriental origin, such as Japanese woodcuts and Chinese ceramics, were also often included. In contrast, for most of the twentieth century, South Africa placed its African

material in natural history, ethnographic or anthropological museums. By rendering it separate from European culture, which was synonymous with the idea of ‘civilisation’, African art was relegated to the realms of the uncivilised. Reflecting on this as an unacceptable state of affairs, Jonathan Lowen, the collector responsible for assembling the Brenthurst Collection, commented that, in the past,

a suggestion to a museum that they mount an exhibition of South African traditional art would not even [have] been considered. … If I had arrived with a Ming vase they would have welcomed me in and put it down next to their greatest museum artefacts, but when you offer them Zulu pots they direct you to the service entrance (interview with Barry Ronge, Sunday Times, 8 December 1991).

Museums, just like encyclopaedias, communicate and entrench powerful messages about the world, its structures, categories and relationships. In this way institutions sanctioned unequal distinctions between the cultural productions of the west and Africa. Through association, precolonial Africa was set up as the primitive, static, savage and exotic counterpart to western civilisation. The latter was positioned as enlightened, modern and progressive.

Increasingly, from the beginning of the twentieth century, particular types of African objects began to be accepted as ‘art’ by some European and North American collectors. Even the South African National Gallery in Cape Town (today Iziko South African National Gallery, ISANG) established a small collection of West African sculpture in the 1970s. Such items were generally restricted to masks and anthropomorphic forms from West and Central Africa that inspired early European modernists such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Max Ernst. Yet even today these are described as ‘African’ and are kept distinct from European art in museums, frequently co-habiting with material from other ‘exotic’ locations like Oceania.1 Southern African material in international collections did not, on the whole, benefit from being reassessed as art in that, rather than large-scale ceremonial items, it consisted mainly of smallscale utility objects such as milk pails, spoons, vessels, headrests and staffs.

In South Africa, the move towards a more democratic society in the later twentieth century saw traditional southern African collections redefined with some movement from ethnographic collections into art galleries. Scholarship such as that of James Clifford (1988), Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine (Karp and Lavine 1991), and publications and exhibitions such as Susan Vogel’s Art/Artifact (1988) showed how, to a large degree, display and presentation determined

whether objects presented were thought of as art or ethnography. The first South African institution to integrate African cultural objects into its collections was the University of the Witwatersrand Art Galleries (today Wits Art Museum) with its Standard Bank Foundation Collection of African Art, a response to the introduction of an African Art component into the university’s History of Art syllabus in the 1970s.2 This opened the way for art galleries in South Africa to be more inclusive. In particular the Tributaries exhibition of 1985, curated by Ricky Burnett, broke with previously established canons by placing Ndebele beaded aprons and painted dance wands, Lovedu carved posts and guardian figures alongside works of contemporary artists such as Penny Siopis, Kevin Atkinson and Noria Mabasa (Burnett 1985). Such an inclusive approach to the creativity of a geographic region had already been seen in the National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe, where headrests and contemporary art were given equal status (interview with Christopher Till, 26 May 2008). The move towards a more inclusive, revised history of art in southern Africa continued with The neglected tradition curated by Steven Sack in 1988 (Sack 1988) and the collecting of southern African traditional art by major public art galleries such as JAG in 1987 and ISANG in 1989.

Acquisitions -- re patriating wo oden treasures

In 1984 Christopher Till presented a report to JAG’s Art Gallery Committee (AGC) on the possible purchase of the important Lowen Collection of traditional southern African art. Jonathan Lowen, a South African who had emigrated to London, assembled this collection between 1971 and 1983 (JAG 1991: 20). Although the AGC approved the acquisition, it was subsequently blocked by the authorising body for JAG’s expenditures, the Management Committee of the Johannesburg City Council.

Its chairperson, Alderman J F Oberholzer, did not consider these items to be art but rather ‘Kaffir’ craft that, in his view, had no place in an art gallery (information from Karel Nel, 6 April 2008).

By contrast, the governing authorities of other South African institutions had a growing appreciation of such items, coupled with concern over their increasing rarity and the need to preserve them in their country of origin. Even so, Patricia Davison of ISANG highlighted how material of this quality was valued more highly abroad than in its country of origin (letter to Rochelle Keene, 21 September 1992).

Peter Wengraf, Director of the Arcade Gallery in London, who was asked to value the Lowen Collection prior to its purchase, commented that:

It would be quite impossible now, to create a collection of Southern African Tribal Art which is as complete and of such an overall high aesthetic standard (letter to Jonathan Lowen, 20 September 1984).

When Johannesburg’s Management Committee did not authorise the expenditure of £250 000 for the 856 objects, Till approached the Oppenheimer family. Harry Oppenheimer agreed to purchase the collection and it was repatriated in 1986. Since 1987, it has been housed at the Johannesburg Art Gallery on permanent loan as the Brenthurst Collection.

It is evident from the outset that the objects were collected according to aesthetic considerations, indicating a respect for the culture and sophistication of the artists who produced them. Lowen wrote:

Having an arts rather than anthropological background, I have focused my art collection upon two principle aims. First and foremost to select items reflecting the creative genius of the people who made the pieces. Secondly, to represent the range and

context of aesthetic qualities which make the Southern African Tribal art so distinctive … I believe in this collection as a mirror of the past. As an essential voice to South Africa’s black people from their Ancestors, expressing confidence and dignity. As a reminder to South Africa’s white people that there was, and is, something to respect and look to in the tribal past. Almost everything in the collection was taken from South Africa decades ago. Some over a century ago ... This collection is not an assembly of ethnographica. It is an art collection and each piece was carefully considered aesthetically to form a comprehensive artistic statement assembled over 12 years of passionate searching (letter to Christopher Till, 10 December 1984).

Lowen was clear about his collecting rationale. He explains why carved objects predominate in the Brenthurst Collection:

Most of the collection is devoted to the art of the Carver who worked in wood and bone and rhino horn. The reason is that beadwork and basketry and the potters art has not ceased entirely and the decorative traditions may still be found. As an art collector, I have been more interested in sculptural quality and, of course, rarity (letter to Christopher Till, 10 December 1984).

With this collection, a firm foundation of material from southern Africa was established at JAG. Other collections were subsequently acquired that expanded and enriched JAG’s holdings. In 1987 JAG purchased a portion (114 items) of the Jaques Collection of headrests, the same year the headrests were declared a national treasure by the National Monuments Council. From 1951 to 1987, the Jaques Collection of over 200 headrests had been on loan to the Africana Museum (today Museum Africa). Reverend A A Jaques had acquired them while working for the

Swiss Romande Mission in the Transvaal (today Limpopo) and in Mozambique in the mid-1920s. The headrests from the collection were purchased with funds from the Anglo American Johannesburg Centenary Trust (AAJCT), an endowment to JAG in 1986 from this large mining house to mark the centenary of the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand and the founding of Johannesburg (JAG 1997).

Another group of important works was purchased in 1992. German-born collector Udo Horstmann had been assembling objects from South African, British, North American and European sources from 1978 onwards (interview with Udo Horstmann, 18 March 2008). In 1992 he was persuaded to sell a small but important group of southern African objects. Twenty-six works were purchased with AAJCT fund money and Horstmann donated a further 66 objects, including six items from the Tzaneen-based collector Jurgen Witt. The collection includes beadwork, snuff boxes, staffs, a rare Lovedu roof finial and three Tsonga figures.

Besides the roof finial mentioned above, the collection contained other exceptional objects. John Mack, at that time keeper of the African collections at the British Museum, noted that the Pedi birthing pair included in this purchase was very rare (letter to Rochelle Keene, 16 September 1992).3 Johan van Schalkwyk of the anthropology and archaeology department of the National Cultural History Museum in Pretoria also remarked on the rarity and quality of this pair.

The pair of human figures, with the one depicting a woman giving birth, seems to be an exceptional pair and would by itself be a big asset for the museum (letter to Rochelle Keene, 16 September 1992).

The importance of the repatriation of these works from Europe to South Africa was widely acknowledged in academic and museums circles. Art critic Anthea Bristow described the acquisition as a real coup as the other

bidders for the collection were major museums in New York and Paris (Business Day, 14 January 1992).

What is noteworthy about both the Brenthurst and Horstmann collections is that they were assembled largely outside of South Africa, with many objects originally removed by travellers, colonial officials, military personnel, missionaries and explorers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Equally, while objects left the country as souvenirs, trophies, specimens and curiosities, they were repatriated as art, an indication of changing attitudes in late twentieth-century South Africa not just to the artefacts, but also to the cultures and societies of black people.

Locally sourced ac quisitions

Turning its focus to locally sourced works, JAG acquired two more important collections. The first, purchased in 1993, was assembled by Stephen Long and added 79 beaded items from the Eastern Cape. In 1994, over 500 predominantly beaded pieces were bought from Mordechai Brodie, who had opened his gallery, African Magic, in Johannesburg in the early 1960s. Brodie, travelling extensively in South Africa, had put together a collection that was arguably the last of its type and size that could be sourced in the field. Social structures that supported traditional lifestyles had been eroding, and collectors and dealers had been scouring the countryside for treasures at an increasing rate, commensurate with growing interest and prices.

Genres and ge nder

The first three collections – Brenthurst, Jaques and Horstmann – focused on what could be termed a more classical concern, with many of the older objects possessing richly patinated wood surfaces. These are objects carved by men, a genre that fitted more easily into canons of what had

come to be accepted as high art. In contrast, the Brodie Collection consisted of a significant number of beadwork pieces that were representative of many communities living in the southern African region, including Fingo, Gcaleka, Pondo, Zulu, Ndebele, Sotho, Tlokwe, Tsonga, San and Herero.4 The acquisition of this collection gave the JAG holdings a more representative spread, not only in terms of geographical location, but also with regard to creative production by both men and women.

Furthermore, moving away from the more classical object, Brodie included items that showed innovative modernisations, such as brightly painted dance wands, Barbie dolls dressed in Ndebele outfits, beadwork with mirrors and charms attached, and a contemporary carving, Iwisa woman, by Johannes Maswanganyi.

Objects from the Brenthurst, Jaques, Horstmann, Long and Brodie collections constitute the major part of JAG’s traditional southern African art holdings, possibly the finest in the world. Important works continue to be purchased, including a further 59 items from Horstmann (mainly ivory snuff spoons and combs), as well as nineteenth-century beadwork and carved pieces from gallerist Michael Stevenson and significant Tsonga-Shangaan items from art dealer Natalie Knight. JAG continues to collect on a selective basis and the current curatorial direction for the collection is not to collect multiples of one type, but rather to focus on obtaining exceptional single pieces. Carved works with anthropomorphic or zoomorphic form, in particular, are sought.

EXHIBITING SO UTH AF RICAN HERITAGE

The exhibition Art and ambiguity, displayed at JAG from December 1991 to March 1992, was the first major exhibition internationally of the traditional art of the southern

African sub-continent. Besides the majority of the Brenthurst Collection being shown, the exhibition also included 30 Jaques Collection headrests and loans from other collections, including the Standard Bank Foundation Collection of African Art at Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, the Junod Collection at the University of South Africa, Pretoria, and items from the Natal Museum, Pietermaritzburg. The show was curated by Karel Nel of the University of the Witwatersrand and Till, assisted by Alan Alborough, the JAG exhibitions officer at the time. It was unprecedented in its comprehensive coverage and in the research by leading scholars that was assembled in the accompanying publication (JAG 1991), which gave shape and meaning to the genre.5 Reviewer Barry Ronge wrote:

The catalogue is the first, indeed the only comprehensive examination of a tradition of South African art that was pillaged, removed, negated and marginalised … Now, like the people of South Africa, it is being gathered back from its exile … offering a sense of identity and tradition that has been missing for decades (Sunday Times, 8 December 1991).

By assembling the objects in the exhibition and the essays in the publication, the curators presented a distinctive southern African aesthetic, underpinned by the contexts, spiritual beliefs and ways of life that gave meaning to the forms, material and creative processes. Few had previously believed that such an aesthetic existed.

The installation of headrests, staffs, clubs and other items emphasised the elegance and infinite morphing of these significant shapes. Till, in his preface to the catalogue, wrote:

The assembling of examples of these [objects] and their presentation together allows comparisons to be made and has begun the process of identifying

the individual hands of artists in the work among known examples in other collections … The exhibition and the collection are focused around sets of objects which include sticks, figures, pipes, ceremonial weapons, beadwork and headrests. The majority of the pieces are made of wood and represent a carving technique and tradition (JAG 1991: 3,4).

About a year later, the exhibition of the Horstmann Collection opened. Rochelle Keene, who had succeeded Till as Director of JAG, wrote in her preface to the exhibition catalogue:

The present exhibition, while still recognising the aesthetic quality of the collection, highlights different aspects of the works. The exhibits are accompanied by explanatory wall panels and labels which draw attention to different ways in which the objects may be approached. For example, a northern Nguni (Zulu) staff (cat 13) is displayed with different types of northern Nguni (Zulu) objects (including a headrest, milkpail and small vessel), all of which illustrate the amasumpa or ‘warts’ motif … (JAG 1992: 2).

A curatorial post for the traditional southern African art collection had been created in August 1991. The first incumbent, Diane Levy, curated the Horstmann exhibition together with Nel and compiled the catalogue.

In August 1996 two separate but linked exhibitions opened, Secular and spiritual:objects of mediation and Views from within, curated by Nessa Leibhammer, the next incumbent of the traditional southern African art post. Accompanying these exhibitions was a resource book, Making links (Leibhammer 1996), that explained not only the exhibitions, but also the way traditional African art is curated and displayed in western institutions. Secular and spiritual grouped together different genres of traditional art, such

as child figures, medicine containers, ceramics, carved figures and beadwork, with explanations of their significance and use, especially their functional and spiritual purpose. Views from within brought together traditional and contemporary works by black artists showing innovation, adaptations to new materials and markets, and how some works made in the past have influenced or remain meaningful to artists today.

By mid-1997 Veliswa Gwintsa had taken up the position of curator of the traditional collection. During her term at JAG she curated Amabal’engwe: traditional garments of the southernAfrican region and Boipelo ka setso (Pride in our African heritage), both shown in 2002. The former displayed garments of ten cultures of the southern African region, placed over metal frames simulating bodies. Photographs by Peter Magubane provided contextual information. The second display showed a wide cross-section of the collection and was accompanied by a catalogue of the same name (Maart 2002).6

In 1998 Leibhammer and Nel curated what could be considered, after Art and ambiguity, the next defining exhibition of traditional southern African art. Child figures, more commonly known as fertility figures or ‘dolls’, are scattered in collections throughout the world. Leibhammer and Nel brought together a representative example of these small, anthropomorphic objects, including 13 important pieces from JAG, in Evocations of the child. The exhibition travelled to major art galleries in South Africa during 1998-9. Like the objects, information regarding these figures was fragmentary and scattered. The accompanying catalogue, with essays by leading scholars, created a benchmark in research into the area (Dell 1998).7

A further major exhibition was curated in 2007, Dungamanzi/ stirring waters:Tsonga and Shangaan art from southern Africa (Leibhammer 2007). Carved pieces from the Brenthurst

and Horstmann collections, as well as many beaded pieces, were displayed with loans from Knight, Nel, the Wits Art Museum and private collector Peter Rich.

With Leibhammer as lead curator and Knight and Billy Makhubele as guest curators, the exhibition celebrated Tsonga and Shangaan art and culture. Complex issues around identity and its constructions were explored not only in the catalogue, but also in the exhibition’s two video interviews, one with Makhubele and the other with poet Vonani Bila, in which each reflected on their own identities.

Apart from these major shows, objects from the collections have been part of other in-house exhibitions such as Images of wood, 1989 (Rankin 1989), Adecadeofcollecting:the AngloAmerican Johannesburg CentenaryTrust 1986-1996, 1997 (JAG 1997), Present continuous, May 2005 and a small educational exhibition that opened in November 2005. International loans from the collection include artworks lent to Africa: the art of a continent at the Royal Academy, London in 1995 and a small exhibition curated by Nel and Gwintsa, Glimpses from the South that accompanied a show of contemporary South African art at the Museum of African Art in New York in 2001. The traditional collections continue to be displayed and, since 2009, have had a dedicated space in the west wing of the Edwin Lutyens building.

While the forming of the southern African traditional collections at JAG is relatively recent, having only been included as part of the overall collection since 1987, JAG’s contribution to local and international scholarship in the field has been significant. The depth and range of the traditional collections have made it possible to establish an understanding of what constitutes southern African traditional art underpinned by a sound historical and theoretical context. Where previously a hiatus of information existed, the exhibitions, publications and collections at JAG have

begun to fill in the empty spaces of knowledge so that a more complete picture of creativity on the southern African sub-continent has begun to emerge.

ENDNOTES

1 These include the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Quai Branly Museum in Paris.

2 African art was introduced into the Fine Art curriculum briefly in the early 1970s by Rayda Becker, and mainstreamed in 1977 by Anitra Nettleton (Nettleton 2010: 81-2).

3 Ironically at the time it was thought that this purchase was very highly priced. However, soon afterwards, a similar birthing figure pair was sold by an international auction house for a far larger amount, showing how rapidly the pieces were growing in value.

4 The terminology and conceptual frameworks that museums and art galleries apply to their traditional southern African holdings is acknowledged as being deeply problematic, skewing the understandings of pre- and colonial histories of the region (see Hamilton and Leibhammer 2010).

5 The catalogue included essays by art historians Anitra Nettleton and Sandra Klopper, curators Rayda Becker, Diane Levy and Ann Wanless, and archaeologist Johan van Schalkwyk. A map by David Hammond-Tooke was also featured (JAG 1991).

6 Essays by Gwintsa, Ronald Dorris and Nettleton are included (Maart 2002).

7 The book comprised 21 essays with an introduction by Elizabeth Dell. Scholars such as historian Carolyn Hamilton explored the nature of women’s material culture in southern Africa, while Marilee Wood and Gary van Wyk wrote on South Sotho figures in ‘The sorghum child: Nguana modula: South Sotho child

figures ’ and ‘Fertile flowers of femininity: South Sotho fertility figures’ respectively. Unpicking the rigidly defined ethnic categories was undertaken in two essays by Nel and Leibhammer – ‘The puzzle of the pendant figures’, where the interface between Sotho and Ndebele beadwork was explored, and ‘Evocations of the child’, where the shared nature of concept and material, rather than the differences in these figures across southern Africa, was revealed (Dell 1998).

NESSA LEIBHAMMER

Nessa Leibhammer is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Johannesburg and the University of Cape Town. She is the curator of the Traditional Southern African Collections at the Johannesburg Art Gallery and has been responsible for numerous groundbreaking exhibitions, including Dungamanzi/stirring waters, which she curated and whose accompanying volume she edited (Wits University Press, 2007).

LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Xifanisa xo vatliwa (female figure), Tsonga

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, pokerwork, textile, thread, 55.5 x 18.6 x 10.3 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

CENTRE:

Artist unrecorded

Xifanisa xo vatliwa (male figure), Tsonga

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, pokerwork, textile, thread, 44.7x 15 x 10.6 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Umndwana (child figure), Ndebele, mid-20th century

Grass, leather, textile, wood, thread, wool, glass (seedbeads), 22.6 x 11.3 x 11.3 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Nguana modula (child figure), Sotho, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, string, thread, glass (seed-beads), metal (button), 36.4 x 14.2 x 14.2 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

CENTRE:

Artist unrecorded

N’wana (child figure), Tsonga, early to mid-20th century

Textile, wood, thread, string, plastic (seed-beads), brass (button), 19 x 5.8 x 5.8 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded Okana kositi (child figure), Ovambo, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, sinew, string, glass (seed-beads), 19.6 x 5.7 x 5.7 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

FULL VIEW AND DETAIL:

Artist unrecorded

Nduku/nhonga (staff), northern Nguni

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 99.5 x 3.1 x 3 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

FULL VIEW AND DETAIL:

Artist unrecorded

Nduku/nhonga (staff), Tsonga

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, pokerwork, shell, 103 x 6.2 x 6.9 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

FULL VIEW AND DETAIL:

Artist unrecorded

Nduku/nhonga (staff), Tsonga

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 107 x 3.8 x 8.8 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

FULL VIEW AND DETAIL:

Artist unrecorded

Nduku/nhonga (staff),Tsonga

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, metal, 84 x 6.8 x 8.8 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

TOP:

Artist unrecorded

Isigqiki (headrest), northern Nguni (Zulu)

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, pokerwork, 14.8 x 48.7 x 13.7 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

BOTTOM:

Artist unrecorded

Mutsago (headrest), Shona

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 13.2 x 17.8 x 6.5 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

Artist unrecorded

Late 19th/early 20th century

pokerwork, 14.9 x 53.2 x 10.3 cm

BOTTOM:

Artist unrecorded

Isigqiki (headrest), Swazi

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 15.8 x 42.8 x 12 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

TOP:

Isigqiki (headrest), northern Nguni (Zulu)

Wood,

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

TOP FAR LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Mutsago (headrest), Tsonga/Shona, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, pokerwork,animal hair, 17 x 17.2 x 8.7 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

TOP LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Xikhigelo (headrest), Tsonga, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 16.3 x 17.2 x 6.4 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

BOTTOM LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Xikhigelo (headrest with staff), Tsonga, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, animal hair, glass (seed-beads), 12.3 x 61 x 6.4 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

TOP RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Ingawa (pipe), southern Nguni, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, metal

Bowl: 4.9 x 3.2 x 7.7 cm; length: 11.3 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

BOTTOM RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Ingawa (pipe), Sotho, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, sinew, glass (seed-beads), lead, metal

Bowl: 8.5 x 3 x 4 cm; length: 15.7 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

TOP:

Artist unrecorded

Set of snuff-boxes, northern Nguni, late 19th/early 20th century

Gourd, brass (wire), copper (wire); largest: 11.3 x 9 x 9 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

BOTTOM:

Artist unrecorded

Tandu (snuff-container), southern Nguni, 1924 (inscription on belly)

Blood, clay, animal intestines, 11 x 13.8 x 7.8 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

TOP:

Artist unrecorded

Idlelo/Isiqobhelo (snuff-container), possibly northern Nguni

Late 19th/early 20th century

Horn, 23 x 2.5 x 2.5 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

CENTRE:

Artist unrecorded

Dikoma (snuff-container), southern Sotho/southern Nguni

Late 19th/early 20th century

Horn, wood, 27.8 x 2.8 x 2.8 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

BOTTOM:

Artist unrecorded

Xufikwana (snuff-container), Tsonga

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 33.3 x 4 x 3.9 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

TOP:

Artists unrecorded

Izintshengula (snuff spoons), northern Nguni

Late 19th/early 20th century

Bone, pigment, largest: 17.4 x 4.1 x 0.6 cm

JAG and Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Vessel, northern Nguni

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, pokerwork, 39.8 x 22 x 22 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Club, southern Africa

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, brass (wire), iron (wire), leather

57.7 x 11.2 x 11.2 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

CENTRE RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Club, southern Africa

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 71 x 9 x 9 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

FAR RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Club, Swazi/northern Nguni

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 74 x 6.3 x 8.3 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Club, southern Africa, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, brass (studs, wire), 56.4 x 8 x 8 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Knife and sheath, Shona, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, wire, metal, 48.2 x 5.5 x 3.7 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

OPPOSITE PAGE LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Axe, Central/East Africa, late19th/early 20th century

Wood, iron, glass (seed-beads), 50.2 x 31.3 x 5.2 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

OPPOSITE PAGE RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Axe and headrest, Tsonga, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, iron, 59.4 x 15.1 x 3.1 cm

Brenthurst Collection (long-term loan)

TOP LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Xikhigelo (headrest), Tsonga, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 15.5 x 18.5 x 6.5 cm

Jaques Collection

TOP RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Xikhigelo (headrest), Tsonga, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 15 x 20 x 9 cm

Jaques Collection

RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Bead panel, Batlokwe, mid-20th century

Leather, beads, brass, 83 x 65.4 cm

Elina Thugwana (date of birth unknown)

Jogolo (apron), Ndebele, early 20th century

Beads, leather, brass rings, h: 54 cm; outside diameter: 73.1 cm

unrecorded

Artist

Ibhayi (married woman’s ceremonial blanket), Xhosa, Mfengu, mid- to late 20th century

Textile, glass beads, mother-of-pearl buttons, 125.5 x 141 cm

Horstmann Collection

TOP LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Knives with sheaths, Tswana, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, bone, leather, metal, hide, 22.3 x 2.2 x 1.3 cm

Horstmann Collection

TOP RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Spoon, northern Nguni/Tsonga, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 63 x 5.9 x 7 cm

Horstmann Collection

BOTTOM:

Artist unrecorded

Seat, northern Nguni, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 24.5 x 53.5 x 25.5 cm

Horstmann Collection

TOP:

Artist unrecorded

Couple with woman giving birth, Pedi

Late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, bone, metal, beads, pokerwork

Largest: 38 x 17 x 12.5 cm

Horstmann Collection

BOTTOM LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Roof finial, Lovedu

Early to mid-20th century

Wood, 47.5 x 23 x 23 cm

Horstmann Collection

BOTTOM RIGHT

Artist unrecorded

Ukhezo (spoons), Zulu

Early to mid-20th century, wood

Largest: 35.5 x 5.2 x 1.2 cm

TOP:

Artist unrecorded

Xikhigelo (headrest), Tsonga, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, 13 x 13 x 5.5 cm

Horstmann Collection

BOTTOM:

Artist unrecorded

Izithunga (milk pails), northern Nguni, late 19th/early 20th century

Wood, string, hide; largest: height: 40.8 cm; outside diameter: 17.1 cm

(date of birth unknown)

Letisa Mashawu

Nceka (beaded wrap), Tsonga-Shangaan, mid-20th century Textile, glass beads, thread, snuff-tin, 131 x 144 cm

TOP:

Artist unrecorded

Intolibhantshi (beaded waistcoat), Zulu

Mid- to late 20th century

Textile, glass beads, thread, plastic buttons, metal buckle, 66 x 50 cm

BOTTOM LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Xigejo (short dance skirt), Tsonga-Shangaan

Mid-20th century

Glass beads, metal bells, plastic beads, string, thread, wool, 18 x 102 x 4 cm

BOTTOM RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Imitsha (belts), Zulu/Shembe

Mid- to late 20th century

Glass beads, string, thread; top: 86 x 8.2 cm; middle: 84.5 x 7.8 cm; bottom: 102.5 x 12.5 cm

TOP LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Irari (beaded blanket), Ndebele, mid-20th century

Blanket, glass beads, 115 x 142 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Majumburo (female apron), Mbukushu, early 20th century

Glass beads, leather, thong, 63 x 81 cm

BOTTOM:

Venus Makhubele (date of birth unknown)

Nceka (decorative wrap):The Lord is my shepherd

Late 20th century

Beaded cloth, 114 x 143 cm

RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Isinkoti (coat), northern Nguni, mid-20th century

Fabric, beads, 138 x 90 cm

OPPOSITE PAGE LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Xinorabaji (diviner’s waistcoat with beaded train)

Tsonga-Shangaan, mid-late 20th century

Textile, beads, thread, 77 x 50.5 cm

OPPOSITE PAGE TOP RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Selection of Omakipa, Ovambo, late 19th/early 20th century

Bone, ivory, pigment; largest: 11 x 6 x 5 cm

OPPOSITE PAGE BOTTOM:

Artist unrecorded

Xithabana (base) and xintewana (lid) (marriage basket)

Tsonga-Shangaan, mid-20th century

Woven grass, beads, thread, 17 x 26.5 x 25 cm

LEFT:

Artist unrecorded (left), Mandelane Sifundza (right)

Bantfwana (child figures), Swazi, late 19th century

Beads, horsehair; largest: 82 x 11 x 6 cm

LEFT:

Artist unrecorded

Ingxowa yebolowe (men’s tobacco bags), Xhosa

Early to mid-20th century

Glass beads, leather, small brass rings, string, textile

Largest: height: 74.4 cm; diameter: 69 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Gona (medicine containers), Hlengwe, 20th century

Gourds, glass beads, thread, wood, metal, textile

Largest: 40 x 25.5 x 25.5 cm

BOTTOM RIGHT:

Artist unrecorded

Beer drinking vessels, Sotho, late 19th/early 20th century

Ceramic, pigment; largest: 21.2 x 15 cm

Mamaila Ngobeni (date of birth unknown)

Vanyankwavi (sangoma’s child figures), Tsonga-Shangaan, c 1970

Textile, beads, thread, wire; largest: height: 74.4 cm; diameter: 69 cm

LEFT: Artist unrecorded Nhekwe (snuff-box), Shona/Ndau, late 19th/early 20th century Wood, reed, pigment, 17.3 x 5.2 x 5.2 cm

RIGHT: Vina Ndwandwe (date of birth unknown)

Lidded basket, Zulu, late 19th century Grass, pigment, 76 x 68.7 x 68.7 cm

CONTENDING LE GACIES: SOUTH AFRICAN MO DERN AN D CONTEMPORARY ART CO LLECTIONS

Khwezi Gule

Introduction

At the time the collection of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) was established, my grandparents would have been in their teens. A new nation had been born out of bloody conflict but my grandparents had no say in the future of that country. Now a century later another recently-birthed nation, also born out of bloody conflict, is struggling to come to terms with the legacy of the preceding century. Part of the struggle has to do with ensuring that the descendants of people like my grandparents have as much stake in the future of the new nation as everyone else, if not in fact then at least in principle. Though the new dispensation does connote the end of bloodshed, it does not mean the end of contestation of space, of values, of traditions. The diversity and complexity of the JAG collection bears testimony to these contested legacies.

This essay is intended to pursue a number of discussion threads that I hope will, in some way, enrich the reader’s understanding of both the complexity and importance of the collections of modern and contemporary South African art held by JAG. These discussion threads concern what are considered important works in the collection, the importance

of the artists that produced them within the greater field of modern and contemporary art globally, and the general conditions under which those artists worked and produced their art. The essay adopts a twenty-first-century view. In accordance with this view, the contribution of artists who were considered important and featured in the collection in the early days must be weighed alongside the contribution of artists who were previously neglected for more that half a century of the collection’s existence.1 A recent example of this phenomenon was the groundbreaking exhibition curated by Riason Naidoo, Director of the Iziko South African National Gallery, 2010:From Pierneef to Gugulective, which brought the work of different collections and aesthetic traditions into dialogue with one another.

A further thread has to do with a simple survey of the diversity of two collections, the South African modern and the South African contemporary. I will explore the ways in which the two collections are aesthetically, historically and formally entangled with one another and other collections within the museum.

The evolving character of museums and the contexts in which they operate in the early twenty-first century are also worth mentioning, since they provide a prism through which

to discern how current acquisitions attempt to speak to a greater world outside the borders of South Africa.

It is my hope that these threads will constitute a clear enough snapshot of the particular moment that JAG inhabits within the larger cultural context.

Definitions

The JAG holdings are classified according to certain collections, the meaning of which are coming under increasingly severe strain as time passes. The classification is essentially two-fold: the traditional art historical divisions into schools and time periods, and the practical divisions into media, in accordance with museum best practices of storage, conservation and display.

The contemporary collection is probably the most diverse in terms of materials, as it incorporates not only traditional media such as painting, watercolour and sculpture, but also multimedia work. However, this very trait presents a number of conceptual and practical problems in addressing what ought to be included and excluded from this collection.

The traditional categories within the museum that define the different collections, though still quite valid in many ways, have been seriously tested recently. Attempts to define what constitutes contemporary art often encounter a number of challenges. Many artists reference multiple visual, historical and cultural vocabularies that make it difficult to categorise according to genre or ideology. As artistic practices become increasingly multivalent globally, the geographic origins of the artist are becoming less relevant. In addition to this, contemporary art deals with contemporary means of production such as new media, contemporary means of circulation such as the internet, and the global art market that is fuelled by an ever-increasing range of biennials, art fairs and conferences. One could also say that contemporary art is primarily concerned with issues that affect contemporary society or address a whole range of philosophical concerns that contemporaneity implies.

Part of the problem, of course, is that the term contemporary arises out of a crisis in modernity and of the modern museum as well. The crisis, according to Stuart Hall (2001), is a result of the drive within modernity itself to redefine and reshape not only its own modes of production but also its modes of representation.2

With regard to some of the work in the JAG collection, another challenge is how to categorise artists who are primarily working in a modernist approach but whose production stretches to the present. Among these are artists such as David Koloane (1938-) (p 152), Kagiso Pat Mautloa (1952-) (p 154) and Helen Sebidi (1943-) (p 151).

A further issue, as outlined above, is one common to most art museums. This concerns the practical care of contemporary artworks which cross a range of media. For instance, a number of contemporary artists such as Berni Searle (1964-) (p 181) and Tracey Rose (1974-) (p 181) work through photographs, which are sensitive to light, temperature and

humidity and should be stored and displayed in traditional ‘print cabinet’ conditions. But there is often little allowance in such curatorial methods, or in the organisation of archival records, for new media, installations and performances.

Art and ed ucation

Although objections could arise with regard to categorising South African artists according to the kind of tutelage they have received, it is important to trace the trajectories of what now constitutes South African contemporary art.

Firstly, it is worth acknowledging that a significant number of artists practising today received their art training before 1994. As a result, patterns of production amongst many artists tend to follow certain distortions created by apartheid. Among these was the kind of art training that black and white artists received. This generally meant university or art school for white artists and different types of community institutions for black artists.

Secondly, there was unequal access to travel and residencies internationally, and black artists rarely had access to available literature on international trends and discourses.

This does not mean that work by black artists was necessarily inferior to that of white artists, but it has affected a number of things. For instance, the proportion of artists who are included in international exhibitions and biennials, the proportion of reviews and catalogue writings, as well as representation in major collections.

Another less obvious consequence is the form of art-making that was favoured by particular institutions. For instance, Rorke’s Drift in Natal (today KwaZulu-Natal), operating from the 1960s to 1982, produced a number of well-known South African artists who work primarily in printmaking (Hobbs and Rankin 2003). Even though some of these

artists, such as Kay Hassan (1956-), have developed their practice in other directions (Powell 2008), the continued popularity of printmaking is due in no small measure to institutions such as Rorke’s Drift and, more recently, Artist Proof Studio in Johannesburg, which has been training printmakers since the early 1990s.

Similarly, institutions such as the Federated Union of Black Artists (FUBA) and Funda Centre in Johannesburg focused primarily on traditional media such as painting, sculpture and printmaking and worked less with photography, video and installations.

It is also worth mentioning that John Peffer (2009) identifies ‘grey areas’, where black and white artists met socially and professionally. These were spaces where ideas were exchanged and new forms of artistic practice emerged, thus constituting unique sites of learning outside the confines of apartheid legislation. In Johannesburg, such sites included private homes, commercial art galleries and institutions such as Polly Street Art Centre (1949-65) (Miles 2004). Questions about the mutuality of these exchanges remain and have been raised a number of times, in particular by curator, artist and art historian Thembinkosi Goniwe, who has argued that it is always the black subject that is ’becoming’, while the white participants never have to shift either physically (it is often the black artist that has to travel to town to be part of the supposed ‘grey area’) or ideologically (see, for example, Goniwe 2003).

Art and ed ucation: of mimicry an d assimilation

It is widely believed that art education for black people subsists mainly in the transmission from generation to generation of traditional art-making methods. This can be true and there may well be similarities between artists in particular regions. But to presume that they are merely

practising an inherited craft learnt at a grandparent’s knee is both patronising and wrong.

If you ask any art student what is common to Jackson Hlungwani (1923-2010) (pp 127-8), Noria Mabasa (1938-) (p 127), Paul Thavana (1930-), Phutuma Seoka (1922-97), Samson Mudzunga (1938-) (p 12), Johannes Maswanganyi (1949-) (p 128) or Nelson Mukhuba (1925-97), you will likely hear the answer that they all live in Limpopo and they are all woodcarvers. You might even find that they are neatly packaged into this, that and the other ethnic group, such as Venda sculptors. However, such generalisations often camouflage the more intricate differences in the practices of these artists.

Many black artists do not rely on knowledge passed on from one generation to the next, nor do they necessarily produce work for use in a traditional setting. They are conscious participants in a wider art market and they make items primarily for this market. There may have been times, for instance in the case of Hlungwani and his New Jerusalem site, when some of these artists created objects for spiritual purposes or their own communities. But today they mainly trade in and promote ideas of traditional woodcarving in response to expectations from an art-buying market.

The pleasures of humour and irony in responding to this market are also not lost to them. Take, for example, Hlungwani’s Christ playing football (1983) (p 128) or Maswanganyi’s pink President PW Botha (1988) (p 128), as well as Mudzunga’s drum-making (p 12), which he has transformed into a performance genre. His drums are no longer traditional objects for use in traditional settings like those of the early twentieth century and earlier. In a number of performances Mudzunga reenacts the cycle of death and rebirth by having himself buried in a drum and then exhumed, emerging out of the drum transformed; often wearing a suit.

Similar individual interpretations, deviating from notions of the traditional, apply to a number of black women artists whose primary mode of expression uses ceramics. Rebecca Mathibe (1936-) and Nesta Nala (1940-) defy notions that what they produce are traditional objects. When, in 2004, I had the opportunity to ask Nesta Nala how she learned to make these vessels, she pointed out that she taught herself and that she did not learn the skill from her parents. She has, however, acknowledged elsewhere that the tradition was passed down to her through her grandmother and then her mother. But she certainly adapted these traditions to her own style, and was the first to declare them art objects by signing them. Her designs may appear deceptively similar to traditional markings, but they are often completely original. Even when commissioned by an archaeologist to recreate specific historical elements in her pots, based on ancient pottery shards, she incorporated those elements into her own aesthetic signature.

It is true of course that these artists draw from the rich visual vocabulary and deep repository of knowledge and narrative of their traditional heritage. However, this does not exclude the ordinary everyday contact and exchange that they have and continue to experience with people, both rural and urban, of various cultures and religious beliefs, and who present different commodities and patterns of consumption. It is patronising to imagine that these artists live in a zone outside of time where their traditional modes of art-making are simply left intact without the influence of modernity and contemporary existence.

The South Af rican mo dern collection

Scholars of modernity hold varying ideas about what distinguishes twentieth-century modernity from previous historical epochs. What is clear, however, is that modernity

is manifested in all spheres of life. A number of scholars have argued that modernity has always tried to make a clean break with tradition. That, however, seems like a limited reading. It is true that modernity is a critique of certain aspects of tradition but, judging from artistic expression, modern artists, at least after French Impressionism, were obsessed with traditional or ‘primitive’ societies. Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) famed ‘theft’ of African imagery is by no means an exception. Artists described as cubist, expressionist, dadaist, surrealist, or in terms of other art movements, were preoccupied with not only visual languages that exist outside of western Europe, but also various philosophies and forms of material culture. The traffic of ideas, of course, was by no means one-sided.

In South Africa the advent of modernity, which I would argue is not necessarily synonymous with colonial occupation, produced varying responses among black artists. For the purpose of this essay I will delineate two responses. The first, to a large extent among traditional art-makers, was a tendency to incorporate elements from different cultures into traditional objects, with an eye on the commercial market. The second response occurred in those who practised art in a western mode. Among the earliest of these artists were Simon Mnguni (c 1865-1956) and Gerard Bhengu (191090) (p 131). What is striking about them is that much of their work is very much like the recordings of early white ethnographers. In the case of Bhengu this was largely due to the patronage, among others, of Killie Campbell and Max Kohler.

Though their imagery and kowtowing to patronage could perhaps be viewed as problematic by contemporary standards, they were among the first black artists in South Africa to produce artworks using western modes of representation. JAG holds a significant number of Mnguni and Bhengu watercolours. It should also be pointed out that these ethnographic studies do not constitute the whole range of their

artistic repertoires. A number of their works were landscapes and commissions from black patrons, especially for book illustrations.

Various writers, among them Emile Maurice (2006), have criticised Bhengu and others for feeding the European appetite for African exoticism. While it may be true, due to the manner in which some of the subjects are depicted and the fact that Bhengu was dependent largely on white patronage, such a disparaging view overlooks the technical accomplishment of the artist and also the fact that some of Bhengu’s illustrations were commissioned for books written by leading black scholars of the time, such as the brothers R R Dhlomo and H I E Dlhomo.

So far I have only mentioned how modernity affected black artists. Producers of much of the earliest forms of western art that were practised in South Africa were referred to as ethnographic, topographic or Africana artists. Artists such as Thomas Bowler (1812-69) and Thomas Baines (1820-75) recorded indigenous people, landscape, flora and fauna, and events such as wars. Their works are often represented in historical rather than art collections, as is the case in Johannesburg, where Museum Africa represents these artists and not JAG.

In many ways South African artists have often tended to look to Europe as the fountainhead of aesthetic and intellectual excellence. This is understandable if one considers that colonial influence, especially in the economic and cultural spheres, came from Britain and Europe.

This is also why the advent of artists such as John Koenakeefe Mohl (Mohlankana) (1903-85) (p 133) and Gerard Sekoto (1913-93) (pp 81, 134) created a major shift in the way that black South African artists practised art. These artists shifted the focus and looked at subject matter in their urban environments. Their depictions of township life tended to show ordinary, everyday occurrences and activities. There was no attempt to exoticise what they saw. With time, however, these artists turned to different subject matter altogether. Mohl, for instance, produced a large and impressive body of landscapes. Sekoto on the other hand left South Africa for France, and depicted elements of that environment, alongside work that spoke of a longing for home.

In so doing these artists fashioned a vernacular form of modernism. What these artists also managed to do was confront a myriad of racist assumptions about black people. Among these was the idea that black people are incapable of producing original art that is equal in innovation and technique to the best that European artists could produce. Their art curtailed the perception that black artists who paint in the modern idiom are merely mimicking art by white people that they see around them.

The work of these artists also put into question the notion that African subjects were merely victims of colonialism.

The preoccupation with the exotic in South Africa continued well into the twentieth century with artists such as Irma Stern (1894-1966) (pp 78, 132), although her works may be said to be more sympathetic studies of indigenous people. In the case of Stern in particular, the modern art movements that were sweeping across Europe clearly informed her trajectory as an artist, both formally and conceptually. Stern went to Germany to study under the renowned German expressionist Max Pechstein (18811955) (p 69). Her paintings echo his expressionist style, and also that of Oscar Kokoschka (1886-1980) and a number of post-impressionists, such as Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). The elongated faces and exaggerated facial features, the use of bright colours and impasto, attest to her allegiance to the expressionist idiom. Her painting Congo Musicians, 1942 (p 132) is a good example of these aesthetic sensibilities.

The colonial encounter was much more ambivalent and they were prepared to meet modernity on their own terms.

A contemporary of Sekoto, George Pemba (1912-2001), was arguably the most talented portrait artist of his generation. Pemba tackled a wide range of subjects – both modern and traditional; well-known figures and common folk. Among these is an exquisite self-portrait done in his advanced years that is owned by JAG. Also among the most innovative of South African artists of this era was Ernest Mancoba (1904-2002). JAG has one of his rare pieces of figurative sculpture, Bantu Madonna (1929) (p 135), and the work stands as an example of the vernacularisation of European art and themes. In painting, Mancoba moved away from representational art towards abstraction, particularly after his move to Paris in 1938 and then Denmark in 1947 (p 135). His work L’Ancêtre is a striking example of this. In Denmark, Mancoba became part of the influential group Cobra (Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam) which focused on giving greater prominence to art from sites that were, at the time, peripheral to the major art centres in France, Germany and England.

Other notable black artists of this era include Selby Mvusi (1929-67) (p 136) and Gladys Mgudlandlu (1917-79) (p 38), who also bears the distinction of being a pioneering black woman modern artist. Her work is remarkable in its economy and expressive qualities. Two important examples of Mgudlandlu’s work are Three men in blue (1970) and Xhosa fairytale (1970). In both, the central groups are set against idealised landscapes and are rendered in confident brushstrokes and bold colours, demonstrating the artist’s attentiveness to colour combinations and acute awareness of form – testimony to an artistic vision that is as eloquent as it is simple.

One of the most historically celebrated white artists in South Africa is Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef (1886-1957)

(pp 73, 137). Pierneef’s work consists mainly of landscapes of various sites in South Africa. He is best known for his neo-cubist work in which landscapes, clouds and trees are rendered in a semi-abstract geometric style. The majority of his work depicts an idealised, uninhabited land that in many ways betrays the kind of economic exploitation that was taking place in political reality. Pierneef and the sculptor Anton van Wouw (1862-1945) (p 55) represent the cultural manifestation of Afrikaner nationalism. Much like other nationalist projects in other countries, idealism seems to have been the chosen means of expression. Pierneef’s pristine landscapes and Van Wouw’s ‘types’ – heroic Afrikaner or tribal native – tended to reinforce the idea of a land that was available for exploitation by the heroic and stoical Afrikaner whose plans of dispossession, they believed, were appropriate for the ‘uncivilised’ black population. Interestingly this idealism also applies to the work of black artists such as Sekoto who, in contrast to Afrikaner nationalism, expresses an emerging African nationalism. This tendency towards idealism began to wane with the appearance of artists such as Stanley Pinker (1924-) (p 138), Fred Page (1908-84) and Dumile Feni (1942-91) (pp 140-1), who offered a world view that was harsh and unforgiving.

The next generation of modern artists emerged in the 1950s. The Polly Street Art Centre (named after its location in Johannesburg) was significant in the development of several important artists of this generation. They include Sydney Kumalo (1935-88) (p 142), Lucas Sithole (19311994), Ezrom Legae (1939-99) (p 38), Ephraim Ngatane (1938-71), Feni, Winston Saoli (1950-95) (p 142), Durant Sihlali (1935-2004) (p 142), Louis Maqhubela (1939-) (p 143) and Ben Arnold (1942-) (p 142) (Miles 2004). JAG owns a significant body of work by these artists, who are also represented in important collections internationally. One of the first important teachers at Polly Street was Cecil Skotnes (1925-2009) (p 144) who was also an emerging artist at the time.

Skotnes, along with Walter Battiss (1906-92) (pp 79, 145) and Alexis Preller (1911-75) (p 80, 145), drew quite heavily from local indigenous forms of art-making. In the case of Skotnes and Battiss, San rock paintings were particularly influential. Yet questions remain whether, in reality, this appropriation actually promoted the recognition of indigenous art-making as being equal to art anywhere else in the world.

Battiss was also influenced by dadaism and staged a number of ‘happenings’. He in turn influenced a group of younger artists, among them Norman Catherine (1949-) (p 158) and Malcolm Payne (1946-).

In the late 1960s, Swedish missionaries in KwaZulu-Natal established the Evangelical Lutheran Centre for Arts and Crafts which came to be known as Rorke’s Drift. A number of ceramic-, textile- and printmakers went through this centre: Allina Ndebele (1939-), Azariah Mbatha (1941-) (p 146), John Muafangejo (1943-87), Vuminkosi Zulu (1948-96) (p 40), Eric Mbatha (1948-), Cyprian Shilakoe (1946-72) (p 40, 147), Tony Nkotsi (1955-), Bongi DhlomoMautloa (1956-) (p 146), Sam Nhlengethwa (1955-) (p 148-9) and Kay Hassan (1956 -), to mention but a few.

Many of the artists who graduated from Rorke’s Drift dealt with religious themes. Some manipulated biblical scenes in order to articulate their opposition to apartheid. Some artists, though not overtly political in their outlook, represented figures in biblical scenes as black people. Other artists, such as Muafangejo, depicted aspects of traditional life, his personal experiences and historical scenes rendered in his iconic bold style of relief printing.

It is important to note also that in the early 1970s a number of black artists were heavily influenced by the ideas of Steven Bantu Biko and Black Consciousness. This philosophy provided a new and radical way in which artists could confront the horror that was apartheid.

Out of this anti-apartheid ferment there emerged artists such as Fikile Magadlela (1952-2003) (p 150) and Thami Mnyele (1948-85) (p 151). These artists were preoccupied with using art as a tool for liberation. This also prompted some artists to shun the gallery world and choose to show their work in the black townships, which were situated outside of the more affluent white urban areas. After the 1976 uprising many of these artists became targets of the apartheid security apparatus and many of them chose to go into exile. However, in terms of tutelage, the younger artist depended on mentorship by older artists such as Legae (p 38). What was special about Magadlela and Mnyele in particular was that their work spoke not only of pain and loss, but also of the dignity and resilience of black subjects. Mnyele was critical of artists who showed images of suffering. He would later join the Medu Art Ensemble in exile in Botswana seeking even more radical ways of making his art speak to resistance against apartheid. With other artists in Medu’s graphic arts unit Mnyele produced anti-apartheid posters that were smuggled and distributed inside South Africa (Seidman 2007, Kellner and González 2009).

Another extremely influential art school was the Johannesburg Art Foundation, established in 1982 by Bill Ainslie (1934-89), and formerly known as the Bill Ainslie Art Studios (1971-81). Artists such as Sebidi (p 151) and Koloane (p 152) benefited from the tutelage they received there.

Koloane is well represented at JAG which owns drawings, paintings and prints by the artist. Much of his work depicts the plight of marginal citizens who are allegorised in the form of stray dogs. The most recent acquisition by JAG of a Koloane, a pastel work, Brazieranddog (2008), is a moving depiction of the grey smog that often hangs over the townships and city, especially in winter. Through the smog shadowy silhouettes of women carrying braziers on their heads and scavenging dogs can be discerned. Similar echoes

can be found in works by photographer Jo Ractliffe (1961-), such as Nadir 14 and 15 (1988) (p 153) and End of Time (1999).

Koloane is a prime example of an artist whose work straddles the divide between modern and contemporary art. A lot of his earlier works, which tended to focus on formal qualities in keeping with modernist aesthetics, were produced in the Thupelo Art Workshop Project, of which he was a co-founder in 1985. However, Koloane also addresses contemporary issues, and the ever-increasing urban expansion of Johannesburg continues to be central to his work.

The South Af rican contemporary co llection

From the 1970s, the proliferation of art schools, such as Funda Art Centre and FUBA in Johannesburg, and community arts projects such as CAP (Community Arts Project) in Cape Town, made it possible for large numbers of black students to receive formal tuition in art and for some to gain entry into universities. Due to their independence from government these schools enabled artists to take on more political subject matter and even overt political action, such as the printing of anti-apartheid posters and T-shirts. These efforts culminated in the much-celebrated Culture and resistance symposium and festival of the arts held in Gaborone in 1982 under the auspices of the Medu Art Ensemble. The symposium was accompanied by an exhibition, Art toward social development, co-curated by David Koloane, Emile Maurice and others from South Africa and Botswana.

By the late 1980s and 1990s post-modernity became a new trend in South African art circles, especially among those artists who had had access to mainstream art education. In the

early to mid-1990s, as South Africa underwent its transition to democracy, with many exiled artists returning to South Africa and the lifting of the cultural boycott, many more South African artists were able to travel internationally. South Africa’s isolation was broken by groundbreaking exhibitions such as Colours (House of World Cultures, Berlin, 1996) and Liberatedvoices:contemporaryartfromSouth Africa (Museum of African Art, New York, 1999). This access to the international scene and markets had a major influence on the type of art that was being produced.

Forms of art such as video, installations, sound art, digital art, and performances became commonplace. This trend was given further impetus by the two editions of the Johannesburg Biennale (1995 and 1997). While the first focused largely on local artists, the second biennale included a larger contingent of international artists.

At about the same time as democracy came to South Africa, unparalleled economic, political and cultural winds were sweeping across the globe. The Berlin wall fell and the two Germanys were reunited. The Soviet block collapsed, bringing down with it several countries that had depended on its patronage. Several western European countries experienced unprecedented growth in their migrant populations and for some countries, especially France and the United Kingdom, second generation migrants began demanding equal status as citizens of their adopted countries. Museums and galleries that had previously ignored contemporary African art came under increasing pressure to be more inclusive. New buzz-words, such as multi-culturalism, began to feature increasingly.

Meanwhile the traditional view of art history came under the sway of interdisciplinarity. Scholars from various cultural studies departments, including gender studies and postcolonial studies, provided art historians and theorists with

fresh new tools with which to critique much of the art and writing that had marginalised women and non-Europeans from participating fully in the academy and institutions of art.

Further, the impact of new digital technologies cannot be overestimated. Not only have they provided new ways of making art, but also new connections and communities can be forged across borders and economic and social divides. This also applies to the proliferation of media networks and popular culture and the undermining of traditional affinities and customs/sensibilities.

New interactive technologies, even if somewhat crude in certain respects, are making artists, curators and museums sit up and take notice. However, they also pose new challenges for collecting and showing such works of art. Indeed many of them even challenge the very notion of what an art object is. A case in point is the work by Nathaniel Stern (1977-) Step inside (2004). It relies on interactive software that enables the ‘viewer’ to step inside a purpose built environment where sound and image combine to create a real time projection of the viewer on the screen. In essence, the viewer is the artwork. Hence, it becomes very hard to pin down what exactly the art object is. Is it the bits of data that are stored on a CD as software, or is it the entire installation including microphones and projectors? Or is it the experience (much more ephemeral) that viewers have when they step into the box?

Other challenges posed by this new kind of artwork revolve around what is to be done when the available technology can no longer support the medium on which the software is stored. How does one maintain the integrity of the artwork in an environment where technology changes all the time?

One of the effects of the cultural shifts of the 1990s was that mobility became easier for artists of former colonised countries who began to live and work in artistic centres in Europe and North America. In an increasingly globalising world, the issue of separate nationalities became less important, especially when it became ever more obvious to many art practitioners that old categories could no longer apply. But there were also problems. New nationalisms arose, manifested in growing xenophobia and neo-Nazism in many European cities, just as migrations increased to the rich western world from countries beset with poverty and repressive regimes. Contact between South Africa and the rest of Africa also increased by way of biennials and cultural exchanges. JAG has subsequently taken to acquiring works of contemporary art from other parts of the African continent, one such work being Oluwarotimi (Rotimi) FaniKayode’s (1955-89) Every moment counts (p 157).

These developments meant that the subject matter for many young artists changed drastically from the kind of ‘struggle’ or ‘resistance’ images of the 1970s and 1980s (see Williamson 1989 for these images). A number of artists from the 1980s and early 1990s turned to humour and irony in order to analyse apartheid. Not only did they depict the excesses of the apartheid regime, but they also mocked the austerity and morality of Afrikaner/white culture. Wayne Barker (1963-) (p 160), Brett Murray (1961-), the Bitterkomix duo of Anton Kannermeyer (1967-) and Conrad Botes (1969-), Andries Botha (1952-), David James Brown (1951-) (p 165), Robert Hodgins (1920-2010) (p 161), Barend de Wet (1956 -) and Penny Siopis (1953-) (p 163) are some of the artists whose work followed this tendency.

Other artists, notably Jane Alexander (1959-) (p 196) and Paul Stopforth (1945-), created images that caused shock and derived value from such emotive responses. Alexander’s Integration programme (1992) stands as a testament to

labour exploitation in South African mines. The sculpture of the sooty black miner loses none of its eerie qualities, no matter how many times one looks at it.

Of course, apartheid operated on many levels of society including town planning, architecture, language, legislation and the judiciary, as well as in many clandestine operations. Works by Colin Richards (1958-), Willem Boshoff (1951-) (p 167), and Jeremy Wafer (1953-) (p 169) seek to deconstruct false hierarchies and to question the basis of knowledge and notions of enlightenment. In some cases, such as in the works of Marc Edwards (1958-) and Alan Alborough (1964-), the intention is also to show the banality of evil. Alborough’s Neck loss (1993) is one such example.

Photography

South Africa has a very rich history of photography. JAG started acquiring photographs from the late 1970s onwards as part of its original print collection, and by the early 1990s had a wide representation of documentary photographs by the likes of Constance Stuart Larrabee (1914-2000), Billy Monk (1937-82), Neville Dubow (1933-2008), Alf Kumalo (1930-) and David Goldblatt (1930-) (pp 170-1). Generally, photographers seldom had their works collected by art museums and exhibited in art galleries until the late twentieth century. The mainstream art community viewed documentary photography with an element of scepticism, and the apartheid government often viewed it as a danger to the state. The documentary photographer Ernest Cole (1940-90) (p 172), for example, went into exile when his works were banned, and never returned to South Africa. His photographs only came to be known in his country of birth after democracy.

Recently, photographs have come to be considered as forms of expression rather than a means of documenting events. The photographer Zanele Muholi (1972-) also uses her work as a form of activism. She focuses on the lives of black lesbians, their relationships, and the constant hate crimes that many have to deal with in the townships.

Nontsikelelo ‘Lolo’ Veleko (1977-) has tended to focus on street fashion in order to narrate a different kind of consciousness that has emerged among young people in South Africa’s urban areas, a consciousness that defies branded clothing and rigid notions of gender identity. Thulani (2005) and Thato (2005) form part of the series, Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, by Veleko. In some ways these echo earlier photographs by Santu Mofokeng (1956-). Apart from scenes of traditional rituals (p 173), Mofokeng also works with photographs of black families taken around 1900, challenging and displacing the images of primitive Africans such as those by Alfred DugganCronin (1874-1954).

Public memory an d se lfinsertion

The documentary mode of representation was transformed in the 1990s by a number of artists, including William Kentridge (1955-) (pp 4, 175). He works with a variety of media including etching, drawing, animation, film, sculpture and sound to express his primary preoccupations: the evils and absurdities of power, the retrieval of memory against amnesia, the poignancy of powerlessness, and the loneliness of the once-powerful. His work deals, in a very personal way, with labour exploitation on the mines and the excessive wealth that this produced. His early animated films focus mainly on the character Soho Eckstein, a mining magnate, whose wealth brings loneliness and unhappiness. Animated

films such as Ubu tells the truth (1996-7) and the installation Black box/Chambre noire (2005) both reflect atrocities committed by those in power. Black box references the German massacre of the Hereros in South-West Africa (today Namibia) in 1905.

The post-apartheid moment provided an opportunity for revising the stories of people that had been omitted from or distorted by official history and art history. Artists such as Searle (p 181), Rose (p 181), Thando Mama (1977-) (p 179) and Clive van den Berg (1956-) use various strategies including video, performance and photography in order to reinsert personal narratives into public discourse. The use of the artist’s own body, apart from being a strategy to avoid the problems posed by the subject/artist dichotomy, also offered a way in which artists could represent themselves in their own voices. While the works of Searle and Rose initially involved their identity as coloured women, for example Rose’s Venus Baartman (2001) and Searle’s Snow White (2001) (p 181), later works have tended to become more formal and less emotive in content. Mama’s interest is in perceptions of black/African male masculinity. His work We are afraid (2003) (p 179) is typical of this trend. Other young artists such as Nandipha Mntambo (1982-) and Nicholas Hlobo (1975-) (p 182) have questioned notions of tradition, masculinity and femininity.

Conclusion

The task of narrating the extent and depth of the JAG collection in a short essay is one that necessitates much exclusion. As I have stated earlier, part of the unfortunate legacy of the collection are the exclusions that were perpetrated in the past. In this light the acts of collecting and archiving are deeply political and are intricately bound with the politics of the time and its rhetoric. Some of

these omissions may be understandable, while others might be regarded as nothing short of atrocious. In either case, exclusions are all regrettable. Any work that enters the collection of JAG does so with the recommendations of the director and curatorial staff, and the endorsement of the Art Gallery Committee and other council committees. Thus a number of people are implicated in these omissions. It remains to be seen a hundred years from now, or even as early as ten years from now, if actors in the cultural field will reflect positively on the impact, however small, that we have had on the collection. Whatever their assessment might be, unlike in generations past, we cannot claim innocence or ignorance. No effort can be spared to make sure that the people of my generation have a stake in the future of the country and institutions such as JAG, something that my grandparents could only dream about.

That current choices might fail to recognise or give prominence to some major artists and their works should be considered as a constant reminder of the enormity of the task that lies ahead. Nevertheless, herein lies the value of a collection: it is not subject to the limitations of one project, nor the myopia of one curator nor museum official. It lies in the generations of art lovers, artists, researchers and scholars who will continue to look upon this collection for inspiration, for information and for a picture of what the art world was like a century ago.

Endnotes

1 Ivor Powell (2008: 38-42) makes the point that, although the first acquisition of an artwork by a black artist took place in 1940, the next such acquisition happened only in the early 1970s.

2 For further discussions on the topic see Aranda et al (2010), Enwezor and Oguibe (1999), Groys (2008) and Richards (2008).

Khwezi Gule

Khwezi Gule is the Chief Curator of the Soweto Flagship, which includes the Hector Pieterson Memorial Museum and the Kliptown Open Air Museum. Prior to this he held the position of Curator: Contemporary Collections at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Gule continues to be an active member of the artistic community through his participation in various projects and public forums. He also contributes essays and articles to various publications.

Altar of God, date unknown, installed at JAG 1993 Wood, dimensions variable

BOTTOM

Noria Mabasa, (1938-) Carnage II, 1988

Fig wood, 79 x 197 x 218.5 cm

TOP:

Jackson Hlungwani (1923-2010)

LEFT: Jackson Hlungwani (1923-2010)

Christ playing football, 1983

Nkonono wood, 58 x 24 x 32 cm

RIGHT:

Johannes Maswanganyi (1948-)

President P W Botha, 1988

Painted wood, 142 x 38 x 50 cm

BOTTOM: Johannes Segogela (1936-) Bout, 1989

Maroela wood, enamel paint, sepile wood, 31 x 19.5 x 21.6 cm

RIGHT: Lucky Sibiya (1942-1999)

Untitled, c mid-1960s

Carved gourd, ink, 22.5 x 16.4 x 17 cm

BOTTOM RIGHT: Lucky Sibiya (1942-1999)

Untitled, c mid-1960s

Carved gourd, ink, 28.5 x 22.5 x 22.5 cm

LEFT: Bonnie Ntshalintshali (1967-2000)

Joseph, 1991

Screenprint, 65 x 50 cm

RIGHT:

Bonnie Ntshalintshali (1967-2000)

Elijah, 1991

Screenprint, 33.7 x 27.4 cm

LEFT: Gerard Bhengu (1910-1990)

Portrait of a young girl (A Zulu girl), undated

Watercolour on paper, 30.9 X 24.1 cm

RIGHT:

Job Kekana, (1916-1995)

Portrait of Sister Pauline, c 1989 Jacaranda wood and afrormosia, 38 x 28 x 19.5 cm

LEFT: Irma Stern (1894-1966)

Congo musicians (previous title: Bahutu musicians), 1942 Oil on canvas, 145 x 135 cm

RIGHT:

John Koenakeefe Mohl (1903-1985)

Magaliesberg mid-winter, c 1943

Oil on board, 62.5 x 86.8 cm

Gerard Sekoto (1913-1993)

Street bonhomie – District Six, c 1945

Oil on wooden panel, 50 x 71 cm

BOTTOM:

Ephraim Ngatane (1938-1971)

Township scene, 1969

Watercolour and gouache on paper 56 x 75.6 cm

TOP:

LEFT: Ernest Mancoba (1904-2002)

Bantu Madonna, 1929

Yellowood, 86.3 x 21.8 x 17.3 cm

RIGHT:

Ernest Mancoba (1904-2002)

Untitled (abstract), 1959

Oil on canvas, 41 x 51 cm

Selby Mvusi (1929-1962)

Measure of the city, 1962

Oil on canvas, 79.5 x 106 cm

Jacob Hendrik Pierneef (1886-1957)

Karibib, a view of the town, c 1929

Oil on canvas, 43.7 x 58.8 cm

The cry of man (6 panels), 1957

Oil on canvas

Panel 1: 72.6 x 91.5 cm

Panel 2: 72,5 x 72.6 cm

Panel 3: 72.4 x 152.8 cm

Panel 4: 72.5 x 152.6 cm

Panel 5: 72.5 x 36 cm

Panel 6: 72.8 x 125 cm

Stanley Pinker (1924-)

TOP:

Albert Adams (1930-2006)

South Africa (triptych), 1959

Oil on board, 183 x 122 cm (each panel)

LEFT:

Peter Clarke (1929-)

Listening to distant thunder, 1970

Oil on board, 61 x 76.4 cm

Dumile Feni (1942-1991)

Untitled (Creation), undated

Drawing triptych (left panel), 168 x 100 cm

Untitled (Crucifixion), undated

Drawing triptych (centre panel), 178 x 101.5 cm

Untitled (Expulsion), undated

Drawing triptych (right panel), 158.5 x 101 cm

RIGHT:

Mixed

TOP LEFT:

Sydney Kumalo (1935-1988)

Mourning woman, undated Bronze, 35 x 14.9 x 13 cm

LEFT:

Ben Arnold (1942-)

The Lion of Judah, 1979

Terracotta sculpture, 25 x 14 x 20.5 cm

TOP: Winston Saoli (1950-1995)

Untitled B, c 1970

Coloured pencil on paper, 74 x 52.8 cm

Louis Maqhubela (1939-)

Composition, 1972

media, 51.7 x 58.7 cm

LEFT: Cecil Skotnes (1926-2009) Woodpanel I, 1966

Stained, carved wood panel, 182 x 47.3 cm

RIGHT:

Edoardo Villa (1920-) Approach, 1975

Painted steel, 214.2 x 21.5 x 63 cm

TOP LEFT:

Walter Battiss (1906-1982)

Copy of a Bushman painting near Bonnyvale, 1940

Body colour, underdrawing, watercolour, 22.5 x 37 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Walter Battiss (1906-1982)

Copy of a Bushman painting, 1943

Watercolour on paper, 25.6 x 37 cm

LEFT: Alexis Preller (1911-1975)

Hieratic women, 1955

Oil on canvas, 86.9 x 101.7 cm

TOP LEFT:

Artist unknown (Bongi Dhlomo-Mautloa) (1956-)

At the end of the day, 1992

Acrylic on canvas, 90.5 x 114.5 cm

BOTTOM LEFT:

Azaria Mbatha (1941-)

David and Goliath, c 1960

Linocut, black ink, 31.4 x 46.5 cm

RIGHT:

Judus Mahlangu (1951-)

Crucifix, 1976

Etching, 39.2 x 23.5 cm

FAR RIGHT:

Cyprian Shilakoe (1946-1972)

Totem (two views), 1972

Rhodesian teak, 60 x 15 x 9 cm

LEFT:

Sam Nhlengethwa (1955-)

Stop it Verwoerd (diptych), 2003

Photolithograph, each 19.5 x 27.9 cm

RIGHT:

Sam Nhlengethwa (1995-) and Zwelethu Mthethwa (1960-) 7:30 News, 2000

Print, collage on digital photograph, 91 x 124 cm

Fikile Magadlela (1952-2003)

Robed figure in a desert landscape, 1975

Pencil and mixed media on paper

169.8 X 101 cm

OPPOSITE PAGE TOP LEFT:

Helen Sebidi (1943-) Where to go? 1991

Etching, 65.6 x 50.2 cm

OPPOSITE PAGE BOTTOM LEFT:

Helen Sebidi (1943-) Like a dream, 1991

Etching, 66.1 x 51 cm

OPPOSITE PAGE RIGHT:

Thami Mnyele (1948-1985)

Alexandra and the river underground, 1976

Mixed media on paper, 56.5 x 39.5 cm

RIGHT:

TOP FAR LEFT:

Nhlanhla Xaba (1960-2003)

Heading home, 1993

Etching, 24.5 x 24 cm

TOP LEFT:

David Koloane (1938-)

Mgodoyi series 1, 1993

Lithograph, 55.7 x 75.6 cm

BOTTOM FAR LEFT:

Andrew Tshabangu (1966-)

Woman preparing fire,1997

Ed 1/5 silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper, 30 x 45 cm

BOTTOM LEFT:

Andrew Tshabangu (1966-,)

Woman and fire at Turbine Hall, 1997

Ed 1/5 silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper, 30 x 45 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Jo Ractliffe (1961-)

Nadir 14, 1988

Photolithograph, screenprint on paper

54.2 x 86.7 cm

BOTTOM RIGHT:

Jo Ractliffe (1961-)

Nadir 15, 1988

Photolithograph, screenprint on paper 54 x 85 cm

Clifford Charles (1964-)

Untitled, undated

Acrylic and mixed media on hessian, on canvas

205.4 x 198.6 cm

RIGHT: Kagiso Pat Mautloa (1952-)

Tablet, 1993

Metal, wood, canvas, oil paint, nails, pop rivets, rust

143.3 x 110.9 x 2.2 cm

LEFT: Samson Mnisi (1971-) and

TOP: Kendell Geers (1967-) Empire, 2002

Video, dimensions variable

BOTTOM: Ruth Sacks (1977-) Don’t panic, 2005

Two-channel video projection, dimensions variable

Marlene Dumas (1953-) Young boy (Blue body), 1996

Watercolour and ink on paper, 123.4 x 69.5 cm

Silver gelatin print mounted on aluminium, 55.4 x 44.5 cm

Every moment counts, 1989

LEFT: Fazal Sheikh (1965-)

FatimaAbdi Sahal, Somali refugee camp, Mandera, Kenya, 1992, 1992

RIGHT: Oluwarotimi (Rotimi) Fani-Kayode (1955-1989)

Lightjet print, 117 x 117 cm

Norman Catherine

In sheep’s clothing (two views), 1998-1999 Oil on fibreglass, metal, 245 x 168 x 20 cm

LEFT: Bruce Arnott (1938-) Citizen, 1985-6 Bronze, 226 x 110 x 156 cm

RIGHT:

(1949-)

TOP LEFT:

Joachim Schönfeldt (1958-)

Villiersdorp Co-op, 2004

Oil paint and varnish on hand-carved wooden panel, 70 x 72.6 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Peter Schütz (1942-2008)

Umzumbe trophy, 1990

Embossed plate, screenprint, 85.2 x 59.4 cm

LEFT:

Claudette Schreuders (1973-)

The neighbour, 2003

Jacaranda wood and enamel, 64.5 x 23 x 16.3 cm

LEFT: Wayne Barker (1963-) Untitled, c 1987

Paint on metal, 115.3 x 87 cm

Robert Hodgins (1920-2010)

Ubu –The official portrait, 1981

Oil and tempera on pressed board, 35.2 x 24.9 cm

RIGHT:

LEFT: Penny Siopis (1953-) Melancholia, 1986 Oil on canvas backed with polystyrene

197.5 x 175.5 cm

RIGHT: Deborah Bell (1957-) After the flood, 1989 Oil on canvas

200 x 165 cm

If South Africa have love. I want freedom, 1990 Oil on board, 97.7 x 131.2 cm

TOP:

Alfred Thoba (1951-)

BOTTOM:

Sfiso Ka-Mkame (1963-) Glory glory (dyptich), undated Pastel, 63.5 x 89.5 cm

TOP:

David James Brown (1951-) Animal No 2, 1980

Jara wood, steel, 79.5 x 43.5 x 118.5 cm

BOTTOM:

Kendell Geers (1967-) Suitcase, 1988

Photocopy, resin, sand, suitcase, 26.7 x 40.5 x 14.2 cm

LEFT: Alan Crump (1949-2009) The execution, 1990 Watercolour on paper, 58 x 76 cm

RIGHT: Willem Boshoff (1951-) Prison hacks – Nelson Mandela, 2003 Granite, 132 x 100 cm

Future memories, 1979

Steel, black enamel paint, 206.5 x 276 x 230.5 cm

The song and dance of peace, 1993

Steel, found objects, 108.5 x 79 x 46 cm

LEFT: Gavin Younge (1947-)

RIGHT: Vincent Baloyi (1954-)

TOP LEFT:

Jeremy Wafer (1953-)

Oval (Blue), 1997

Colour etching and aquatint, 75 x 106 cm

LEFT:

Walter Oltmann (1960-)

Third hand, 1992

Grass rope, copper wire, copper tubing, 148 x 101 x 65 cm

RIGHT (three works):

Jeremy Wafer (1953-)

Red oval 2 (2 of 4), 2003

Fibre reinforced resin, pigment, 50 x 26.5 x 15 cm

Red oval 3 (3 of 4), 2003

Fibre reinforced resin, pigment, 51.5 x 29 x 18.7 cm

Red oval 4 (4 of 4), 2003

Fibre reinforced resin, pigment, 56 x 30 x 19.5 cm

BOTTOM:

Ranjith Kally (1925-)

Business as usual. ChiefAlbert Luthuli looking out of his spazza shop window in Groutville, soon after being told that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, 1958 Silver gelatin print, 39.8 x 29.3 cm

David Goldblatt (1930-)

From The transported of KwaNdebele series

TOP LEFT:

Going to work: 2:40 am queuing for the PUTCO bus on the Boekenhouthoek-Marabastad route at a bus stop in the bush of KwaNdebele, 1983

Silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper, 25.8 x 37.9 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Going to work: 2:45 am the first bus of the day pulls in at Mathyshoop on the Boekenhouthoek route from KwaNdebele to Pretoria, 1983

Silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper, 30.4 x 25.8 cm

BOTTOM LEFT:

Going to work:Wolwekraal-Marabastad bus at about 4 am more than an hour and a half to go, 1983

Silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper, 25.8 x 38 cm

BOTTOM RIGHT:

Travellers from KwaNdebele buying their weekly season tickets at the PUTCO depot in Pretoria, 1983

Silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper, 25.8 x 37.9 cm

Ernest Cole (1940-1990)

TOP LEFT:

On a Saturday afternoon in the heart of Johannesburg five tsotis mug a white man.While others watch warily, and pretend to be passersby, fifth man surprises victim from rear end with forearm blow across throat, early 1960s

Handprinted black and white photograph, 20 x 25.5 cm

TOP RIGHT:

As white man sags to street, second tsotsi helps empty his pockets.Attack was over in seconds. Gang got away with victim’s weekly pay envelope.Woman in background scurrying out of harm’s way, early 1960s

Handprinted black and white photograph, 20 x 25.5 cm

BOTTOM LEFT:

A white pocket being picked.Whites are angered if touched by anyone black, but a black hand under the chin is enraging.This man does not know that his back pocket is being picked, c 1967

Handprinted black and white photograph, 30 x 20 cm

BOTTOM RIGHT:

Blacks have just picked this man’s pocket, having distracted him by touching him – is allowed to go on his way – till next time, c 1967

Handprinted black and white photograph, 30 x 19.7 cm

Santu Mofokeng, 1956-)

From the Chasing Shadows series

TOP:

Sangoma invocation ritual, Easter Sunday Zion Apostolic Church,1996

Selenium-tinted photograph on Ilford

Multigrade IV fibre-based paper

50.8 x 61 cm

BOTTOM:

Shrine at the portals of Motouleng, 1996

Selenium-tinted photograph on Ilford

Multigrade IV fibre-based paper

50.8 x 61 cm

TOP LEFT:

Pieter Hugo (1976-)

Steven Mohapi. South Africa, 2003

Pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 100 x 79 cm

TOP RIGHT:

Mikhael Subotzky (1981-)

Keith. Lavender Hill, 2005

Digital print on cotton rag paper, 70 x 47 cm

LEFT:

Guy Tillim (1962-)

Goma residents salute Laurent Kabila after his army’s takeover of the city from Mobutu’s troops (Leopold and Mobutu series), 2003

Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 141 x 98.7 cm

William Kentridge (1955-)

Procession series #6, 2000

Ed 5/7 bronze on wood base, 144 x 129.7 x 49.5 cm

Moshekwa Langa (1975-)

Here to stay, 2000

Mixed media on paper, 137 x 98 cm

RIGHT: Churchill Madikida (1973-) Virus, 2005

DVD projection, dimensions variable

BOTTOM:

Sue Williamson (1941-)

From the inside: Benjamin Borrageiro, 2000

Digital print on paper, 90 x 200 cm

Diane Victor (1964-)

Smoke portraits (series of 6), 2005

Smoke deposits on paper, 58 x 41 cm (each panel)

The calling, 2003

Video, dimensions variable

Thando

We are afraid, 2003

Video, dimensions variable

LEFT:

Minnette Vári (1968-)

RIGHT:

Mama (1977-)

OPPOSITE PAGE LEFT:

Robin Rhode (1976-)

He got game, 2002

Video, dimensions variable

OPPOSITE PAGE RIGHT:

Reshma Chhiba (1983-)

Untitled, 2003

Video installtion, dimensions variable

LEFT:

Berni Searle (1964-)

Snow White, 2001

Video, dimensions variable

RIGHT:

Tracey Rose (1974-)

The kiss, 2002

Lambda photographic print, 124 x 123.5 cm

LEFT:

Nicholas Hlobo (1975-)

Igqirha Iendlela, 2005

Leather jacket, rubber inner tube, blouse, ribbon, bust, 170 x 62 x 60 cm

RIGHT

Johannes Phokela (1966-)

Chocolat, 2005

Oil on canvas, 198 x 168 cm

Blue collar girl (CapeTown) (triptych), 2004

Lambda and diasec photographic print, each panel: 54.5 x 80.5 cm

BOTTOM:

Mustafa Maluka (1976-)

Nigga with an attitude, 2005

Oil on canvas, 183.1 x 133.1 cm

TOP:

Bridget Baker (1971-)

TOP LEFT:

Kathryn Smith (1975-)

There was nowhere to go; the small of her back was pressed up against the writing desk, 2003 Installation, LED sign and lambda prints, dimensions variable

TOP RIGHT:

Joni Brenner (1969-) Nigredo, 2001

Oil on canvas on glass, 21 x 26 cm

RIGHT:

Joni Brenner (1969-) Pyroclastic, 2001

Oil on canvas on glass, 21 x 26 cm

Billie Zangewa (1973-)

Pillow talk, 2004

Cut silk and cotton, 100.5 x 110 cm

LIBRARY, ME MORY AN D AR CHIVES

Johannesburg Art Gallery

Library

Jo Burger

One of the resources that Florence Phillips envisioned and fought very hard to have realised during the earliest years of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) was a library. A century later her vision is a treasured reality. Today the JAG library exists as an invaluable, specialised collection that is used and acknowledged by researchers locally and abroad. The success of the library can be attributed to the many dedicated role players that have invested in it over the past century.

The JAG library was started in 1912 when Florence Phillips persuaded Max Michaelis to donate a thousand pounds towards books for the gallery. An excellent selection of books on art, architecture and crafts was carefully assembled by experts in London. However, the 1915 JAG building did not include the pavilion designed for the library, and so when the first consignment of books arrived, and the gallery could not house them, it was arranged for them to be housed at the Public Library instead until such time that the pavilion was complete. Since that never materialised, the books remained at the Johannesburg Public Library as the Michaelis Art Library.

Despite two new wings being opened in the gallery in 1940, a library was eventually only included in the JAG

building with the 1986 Meyer Pienaar extensions. This unfortunate situation of having no formal library or books did not however prevent JAG staff from selecting and expanding their references. The first director, Anton Hendriks, an authority on art publications, made a huge contribution, acquiring important monographs, catalogues and catalogues raisonnés for the reference section. Working alongside him as an assistant was Nel Erasmus, who became the next director, and she was also known for her enthusiasm in various fields of research. The baton was passed on through the years to directors and curatorial staff whose expertise and special interests are reflected in the library’s varied and rich collection, a tradition that continues today.

Through the years the collection developed as a reference section for JAG staff. For a long time it was scattered and moved to different locations within the gallery, until it finally came to settle in the lower level of the new extension in January 1986. For the first time, with the library’s entire stock housed together, it was able to function as a specialist art reference library for the public in addition to its primary function as a resource centre for JAG staff. The resources were made more accessible, and an immediate increase followed in the use of the new library by students and researchers.

For more than six decades no official librarian was appointed. JAG staff managed all the tasks. In 1979, a full-time Professional Officer (Librarian) post was created, the first incumbent being Mimi Badenhorst (later Greyling). The

following librarians were Maureen Rall, Sonja Begg, Lynn Neethling and Jo Burger. Soraya Badat filled the post when it became vacant in 1994-5, until Jo Burger was appointed in 1996. The title of the post changed to Librarian/Archivist.

Assistants were appointed, and for the last 14 years, Matstidiso Qakisa has been a great help. Voluntary workers have also long assisted in the library. Joy Cheesman, Sheila Lawrence and all other volunteers will be long remembered.

Since 1985 the cataloguing and classification of the collection of books has been given a considerable boost working together with the Central Cataloguing Department (CCD), diligently managed by Sonja Begg and Iris Cohen. Computerisation of the collection was the next big task at hand. The manual card catalogue was closed off in 1994 and the input of cards onto the URICA database was introduced. In order to achieve standardisation of the electronic bibliograhic system, this collaboration is still ongoing with the City of Johannesburg’s Bibliographic and Distribution Services. Over the last twelve years this process has been finalised.

The exchange programme, whereby publications from international and national museums, galleries and institutions are received in exchange for the JAG’s publications, has been one of the most important contributors to the library’s collection. Further donations from galleries, publishers, banks, Friends of the Johannesburg Art Gallery and guides, universities, artists, critics, authors,

auctioneers, journalists, private donors, and other organisations and institutions are received. A special donation of 27 000 slides was received from the Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit (now University of Johannesburg) in 1994. Despite severe and ongoing budget constraints, the library’s holdings have increased regularly. The library contains resources of over 10 000 art books, supplemented by archival material, pamphlets, news-cuttings, journals, videos, CDs and DVDs.

It is encouraging to see the extent to which this library is used and acknowledged, and we look forward to being of service for the next hundred years.

Jo Burger

Jo Burger has been the Senior Librarian of the Johannesburg Art Gallery library and archives since 1996. She was formerly a teacher at various schools and a lecturer at the Goudstad Teachers College. Between 1991 and 1994 she was the medical librarian at the J G Strijdom (now Helen Joseph) Hospital before she was appointed to the Johannesburg Art Gallery.

Retrieving the institutional memory

Jillian Carman

When I began doctoral research in 1995 on the founding of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) I knew I had a tough job ahead of me. All early records that should have been preserved on JAG’s property had been destroyed by ‘a previous director’, according to Anton Hendriks (JAG director 1937-64; letters to Lillian Browse, 26 March 1942, and Margery Ross, 26 April 1951). Furthermore, any records that may have survived in the care of Florence Phillips, the initiator of the JAG project, were destroyed on her death in 1940 by her daughter (Gutsche 1966: 398). Fortunately, the important Robert Ross papers survived, but that was because they only arrived on JAG’s property during Hendriks’ tenure (Carman 2006: 391). They were, however, of limited value as they start after the opening of JAG’s foundation collection. There appeared to be no extant archival material on the foundation collection itself, how it was sourced, and how it was curated.

The challenge of my research was to try and retrieve the lost archive, to reconstruct some sort of institutional memory. I began with an audit of all early material on JAG premises, which was scattered and not easily accessible, and moved on to an audit of further related material within public and private collections in South Africa, Ireland, the UK and the USA. Although some basic records did not turn up – such as account books and insurance lists for the original collection, or an employment contract for Hugh Lane – sufficient other material emerged to enable a recreation of the circumstances of JAG’s founding.

Some of the more valuable resources were those that had previously not been in the public sphere, such as a large collection of Hugh Lane’s private papers recently acquired by the National Library of Ireland, and some letters from Hugh Lane to Florence Phillips in the possession of Florence’s great-granddaughter, Paula Hunt. Most of the material, however, was already in the public domain, but had not been tapped for information that could associate it with JAG. Such material gained significance in the light of new associations, such as contextualised readings of press reports of the time, and reinterpretations of some letters and documents relating to Florence Phillips and her interactions with the curatorial staff at the Victoria and Albert Museum (Johannesburg Art Gallery, British Library and Victoria and Albert Museum archives). Occasionally the serendipitous matching of dispersed material resulted in some important insights, such as a new angle on the Randlords’ patronage suggested by the matching of a telegram to Otto Beit (National Library of Ireland) with the minutes of the Council of Education, Witwatersrand (University of the Witwatersrand Library, Historical papers) and a letter from Hugh Lane to Florence Phillips (Paula Hunt collection).

In the end there was sufficient primary material, drawn from a wide range of sources, that could be used to reconstruct JAG’s early history, and start to retrieve an institutional memory that was in danger of being lost.

For a full list of archival sources used in this research, see Carman (2006: 390-2).

Jillian Carman

Jillian Carman is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University o f

Johannesburg. She was formerly a curator at the Johannesburg Art Gallery and is the author of Uplifting the colonial Philistine: Florence Phillips and the making of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (Wits University Press, 2006).

FUBA Academy Archives

Housed in JAG’s library, this unique and invaluable archive is one of South Africa’s most prized art resources. Tirelessly researched, documented and compiled by Elza Miles between 1992-3 during her tenure as researcher in residence at FUBA (Federated Union of Black Artists) Academy, the archive documents the work and lives of black South African artists at a time when the majority of these artists were still largely unrecognised, underrated and neglected in their own country.

Several years earlier, in 1988, Miles had already discussed with Sipho Sepamla, the Director of FUBA Academy, the need of establishing a research unit and had written a proposal to the effect of compiling resources. At that time she was teaching history of art at FUBA and was alerted to her students’ need of local role models. Miles and Sepamla had agreed that a handbook on pioneering black South African artists would be an indispensible resource. Barbara Lindop was already producing a book on Gerard Sekoto at the time, and so Miles and Sepamla agreed on artists Sydney Kumalo, Ernest Mancoba, John Koenakeefe Mohl, Ephraim Ngatane, George Pemba and Lucas Sithole as their additional key list. Miles’ final research, however, went way beyond this small group of important artists.

The extensive parameters of her research saw Miles pioneering daring and endless journeys through South Africa to

interview artists, their families and friends. She worked with galleries across the country, did extensive archival research at the State Archives in Pretoria, working through boxes of newspaper clippings, catalogues, programmes and journal articles, supplied by the National Film, Video and Sound Archives. These boxes, compiled by the Bureau of Human Resources, were treasure troves on South African art. Confronted with the first batch of material, Miles diverted from the decision of merely focusing on the selected artists and instead photocopied everything that related to African art, artists and their work. In 1992 she compiled and published an Artists’ birthday calendar for 1993, which showcased the research unit at FUBA Academy, and also gave her the opportunity to pay tribute to art by then unknown artists, such as Micha Kgasi and Thomas Masekela, two of South Africa’s underrated sculptors. She had further hoped that the calendar would lead to responses from readers by providing information on artists whose names were listed in the introduction. Eventually, in the case of Albert Adams, a painter who left South Africa in 1960 and was completely forgotten in the country of his birth, this happened when Jane Alexander responded from the Irma Stern Museum with a package on Adams.

Miles did extensive fieldwork in and around Johannesburg and Pretoria. She visited Botswana twice, where she followed leads for John Mohl. The archives also contain her research in KwaZulu-Natal, where she gleaned valuable information on Zulu artists, especially Laduma Madela, from documentation held in the Campbell Collections of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. Her research took her to Port Elizabeth, where she interviewed George Pemba several times, as well as to the University of Fort Hare. In Cape Town she gleaned information on Cape artists in the library and education department of the Iziko South African National Gallery.

Many of the artists included in the archives have since died, and the files of the FUBA Academy Archives offer a rare and valuable basis for researchers to work with. They represent a heritage salvaged timeously by Miles’ vision, passion and persistence. Elza Miles

Elza Miles is the writer of several art books and a printmaker.

REFERENCES

Archives of the Johannesburg Art Gallery

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INDEX OF IL LUSTRATIONS

Adams, Albert, 139

Alexander, Jane, 196

Arnold, Ben, 142

Arnott, Bruce, 158

Artists unrecorded, 41, 88-102, 104-107, 109-115, 117

Augustus, John, 49

Bacon, Francis, 33

Baker, Bridget, 183

Baloyi, Vincent, 168

Barker, Wayne, 160-1

Battiss, Walter, 79, 145

Bayes, Walter, 58

Bell, Deborah, 163

Bevan, Robert, 58

Bhengu, Gerard, 131

Bidjocka, Bili, 10

Boldini, Giovanni, 26

Boonzaier, Gregoire, 79

Boshoff, Willem, 167

Boudin, Eugène, 54

Breitner, George, 62

Brenner, Joni, 184

Brown, David James, 165

Catherine, Norman, 158

Cézanne, Paul, 63

Charles, Clifford, 154

Chhiba, Reshma, 180-1

Chinese roof tile, 29

Claesz, Pieter, 70

Clarke, Peter, 139

Coetzer, Willem Hermanus, 75

Cole, Ernest, 172

Crump, Alan, 166-7

Dalí, Salvador, 31

Degas, Edgar, 63

Derain, André, 67

Deverell, Walter, 57

Dhlomo-Mautloa, Bongi, 146

Duchamp, Marcel, 31

Dumas, Marlene, 156

Dürer, Albrecht, 59

Epstein, Jacob, 50-1

Fani-Kayode, Oluwarotimi (Rotimi), 156

Fantin-Latour, Henri, 52-3

Farocki, Harun, 11

Feni, Dumile, 140-1

Frith, William Powell, 52

Furniture, 28

Geers, Kendell, 155, 165

Gilman, Harold, 58

Gleizes, Albert, 65

Goldblatt, David, 170-1

Goliath, Gabrielle, 5

Goodman, Robert Gwelo, 72

Gore, Spencer, 50-1, 57

Goya, Francisco de, 61

Grosz, Georg, 69

Haden, Ruth Everard, 76

Harpignies, Henri, 53

Havard Thomas, James, 25

Hlobo, Nicholas, 182

Hlungwani, Jackson, 127, 128

Hodgins, Robert, 161

Hokusai, 29

Hugo, Pieter, 174

JAG building, 24-5

Josset, Lawrence, 27

Ka-Mkame, Sfiso, 164

Kally, Ranjith, 170

Kekana, Job, 131

Kentridge, William, 4, 175

Knight, Laura, 50

Koloane, David, 152-3

Kottler, Moses, 74

Kumalo, Sydney, 142

Kunimasa, 29

Lace, 28

Langa, Moshekwa, 176

Laubser, Maggie, 74

Legae, Ezrom, 38-9

Léger, Fernand, 68

Les Grandes Personnes, 8

Lichtenstein, Roy, 30

Lock, Freida, 78

Mabasa, Noria, 127

Madikida, Churchill, 177

Magadlela, Fikile, 150

Mahlangu, Judus, 146-7

Maillol, Aristide, 67

Makhubele, Venus, 110

Maluka, Mustafa, 183

Mama, Thando, 179

Mancini, Antonio, 26

Mancoba, Ernest, 135

Maqhubela, Louis, 142-3

Maris, Jacob, 52-3

Martineau, Robert, 57

Mashawu, Letisa, 108

Maswanganyi, Johannes, 128

Matsoso, Leonard, 41

Mautloa, Kagiso Pat, 154

Mbatha, Azaria, 146

Mgudlandlu, Gladys, 38-9

Millais, John Everett, 52

Mnisi, Samson, 154

Mnyele, Thami, 150-1

Modigliani, Amedeo, 65

Mofokeng, Santu, 173

Mohl, John Koenakeefe, 133

Monet, Claude, 49

Moore, Henry, 32

Motau, Julian, 39

Mthethwa, Zwelethu, 148-9

Mudzunga, Samson, 12

Mvusi, Selby, 136

Naude, Hugo, 75

Ndwanwe, Vina, 117

Ngatane, Ephraim, 134

Ngobeni, Mamaila, 116

Nhlengethwa, Sam, 148-9

Noland, Kenneth, 30

Ntshalintshali, Bonnie, 130

Oerder, Frans, 72

Oltmann, Walter, 169

Orpen, William, 27

Palamedesz, Antonie, 70

Pechstsein, Max, 69

Phokela, Johannes, 6, 182

Picasso, Pablo, 33

Pickenoy, Nicolaes Eliasz, 71

Pierneef, Jacob Hendrik, 73, 137

Pinker, Stanley, 138

Pissarro, Camille, 48

Preller, Alexis, 80-1, 145

Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre, 53

Ractliffe, Jo, 153

Rhode, Robin, 180

Rodin, Auguste, 54-5

Rose, Tracey, 181

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 56-7

Sacks, Ruth, 155

Saoli, Winston, 142

Sargent, John Singer, 50

Schönfeldt, Joachim, 159

Schreuders, Claudette, 159

Schutz, Peter, 159

Searle, Berni, 181

Sebidi, Helen, 150-1

Segogela, Johannes, 129

Sekoto, Gerard, 81, 134 Sheikh, Fazal, 157

Shilakoe, Cyprian, 40, 146-7

Sibiya, Lucky, 129

Sickert, Walter Richard, 50-1

Sifundza, Mandelane, 113

Signac, Paul, 66

Sihlali, Durant, 39

Siopis, Penny, 162-3

Sisley, Alfred, 49

Skotnes, Cecil, 144

Smith, Kathryn, 184

Steer, Philip Wilson, 48

Stern, Irma, 78, 132-3

Subotzky, Mikhael, 174

Sumner, Maud, 77

Thoba, Alfred, 164

Thugwana, Elina , 103

Tillim, Guy, 174

Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de, 64

Tshabangu, Andrew, 152-3

Van Gogh, Vincent, 62

Van Rijn, Rembrandt, 60

Van Wouw, Anton, 54-5

Vári, Minnette, 179

Victor, Diane, 178

Villa, Edoardo, 7, 144

Wafer, Jeremy, 169

Wenning, Pieter, 73

Whistler, James Abbott McNeill, 61

Williamson, Sue, 177

Xaba, Nhlanhla, 152-3

Younge, Gavin, 168

Zangewa, Billie, 185

Zulu, Vuminkosi, 40

A frame being repaired in the conservation department at JAG.

An installation view of Jane Alexander’s African adventure (1999-2000, mixed media installation, dimensions variable) as part of Africa remix in 2007.

An installation view of Borders, a recurated exhibition of works from the 2009 Bamako Encounters photography biennale, hosted by JAG from June to September 2010.

JAG’s installation team hanging the exhibition Transformations: women’s art from the late 19th century to 2010

The opening night of Africa remix, curated by Simon Njami, in July 2007.

Roger Ballen’s mid-career retrospective installed in the Phillips Gallery in 2007.

One Hundred Years of Collecting: The Johannesburg Art Gallery