History Matters Blog :

Gallery



  • CYCLISTS IN SOPHIATOWN 1940-42 'I still had in mind to visit Cape Town which I imagined to be very different in ways of living from Johannesburg. I started to collect paintings for a show which would pay for my trip to Cape Town and to stay there for a while.'



  • CHILDREN PLAYING 1942-45 'Sine it was the law of the country that whites topped the list, that would sometimes create embarrassment amongst family and friends. A child could be the whitest in the family in which case he could be tempted to "play white" and shift into the more advantageous awareness of life.'



  • INTERIOR SOPHIATOWN 1939 'What I am in love with is not merely to be loved, but that love be the chain joining us all.'



  • HOUSES: DISTRICT SIX 1943-45 'I lived on the edge of District Six - the "coloured" area. It ws poverty stricken… Several members of one family were squeezed into one place, obliged to sleep and eat in the same room which was hardly ventilated and awfully dilapidated, while in the backyard several families had to share one toilet.'



  • MARY DIKELEDI SEKOTO 1946-47 'My sister-in-law, Mary Dikeledi, is not easy to allow for in a pose. However, we got on well and I finally made her sit for a very short time. She is a tough character, but I could moderate her into a mild mood, even of gaiety, whenever she was in a contradictory state.'.



  • NUDE; SKETCH FROM L'ACADEMIE DE LA GRANDE CHAUMIERE, PARIS 1948 "At the academie de la Grande Chaumiere …it was that Parisian atmosphere which was dominant: to be wise, "sage" and a avoiding being ridiculed. This philosophy has taken me a long time to try to adapt to myself, as it made me feel unnatural. I will never be fully trained in that direction.' Photo: Marie Feral Descours.



  • SELF-PORTRAIT 1946-47 'What you are reading from my expression is not fear, but mostly mistrust and deep agony about contradicting attitudes amongst people. I do not have a particular fear, but am looking into the future of our country with much anxiety, yet fully determined to live this life as everybody does - through using one's own personal walking sticks.'



  • THE DONKEY CART, EASTWOOD 1946-47 'I belong to all the people of my land of birth and they also belong to me. I think that fact is being made clear in the productions and in my determination to further on my work jn their name.



  • THE PROUD FATHER, MANAKEDI NAKY ON BERNARD SEKOTO'S KNEE 1947 'The most important memory usually remains for a long time, if not for as long as life continues.'


  • THE WINE DRINKER 1943-45 'Young coloured people would be seen loitering around without jobs, not able to go to school because their parents were without means, so all they had to do was to hustle to drink cheap wine and smoke. The community was neglected and cut off from society. Mothers had to make ends meet in the most complicated way, while the fathers were either in prison, drinking or pushing drugs with friends on street corners.'

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