The African Art Centre Collection

The African Art Centre Collection was never consciously initiated as a Collection, although it has become one. Many of the pieces do not bear the name of the artists and are there for their own sake.

Over the years there were certain items which I found so attractive that I managed to 'save' them from being put on sale. They were 'put to one side' and found a place in my office at the Art Centre. Very many equally important items were acquired by people who had an eye for the very original, and by galleries in South Africa, especially the Durban Art Gallery.

The first special piece put to one side was a carved wooden transistor radio, something which in 1968 every young person yearned for. The name of the artist who made it was not recorded, and he only brought one more to the Centre. I hope the artist was later able to buy himself a real transistor radio. Next to the wooden radio is a beaded transistor radio made by Sizakele Mchunu in 1985.

In a way they typify the collection, which comprises crafted creations and artefacts that the artists really loved making, and in some cases would have liked to have kept for themselves had the need to sell not arisen. Among pieces 'put aside' in the 1960s was a beautiful carving of a traditional Zulu woman in mthombothi wood by Amzon Mzila, from the Msinga Reserve.

From the Msinga area too are what I have titled 'Beer Skimmers Transformed'. While there was a trend towards make beer skimmers from tin cans instead of grass, the maker of the skimmers in the Collection perhaps unwittingly transformed them into metal sculptures.

The skimmers - one made from a Spartletta can and the other from a Lion beer can - stand on two legs with arms outstretched. The skimmer spoon sections are pierced for straining the beer and look like human heads. I bought them at a roadside market in the Msinga Reserve and am sure they were meant for local people to buy and not for the tourist market. Picasso I am sure would have loved them.

Pius Bhengu's wood carving Nativity Group is another early acquisition. Bhengu, a rather lame man who lived On a Catholic Mission, brought in a Nativity scene each Christmas, and this gentle Mary and Joseph, the baby in the crib and the animals found its way into the Collection.

Other wood carvings that take pride of place are two simple column like shapes which give the impression of a mixture of a missionary and an angel. They are merely signed 'Jams'. The artist was almost blind. A three dimensional carving taken from the amorial arms on a 20 cent piece, a Victorian style pen holder, a beautiful tea set and a lemon squeezer, are other original wood carvings.

Among the tea sets is one made of telephone wire by a waiter working at the Durban Club, a replica of the sort of tea set which would be used for early morning tea there. Another tea set is made of sea grass and plastic thread from orange bags. It was made by Ben Nyawo, who could be found sitting on a bench overlooking Addington Beach, whiling away his off duty time creating miniature chairs and tables and small baskets.

Also in the Collection is a perfect and most aristocratic looking hat made by 'Ben', a wonderful bead hat and a replica of a grass woven Basuto hat made of strips of plastic bags.

Early examples of urban crafts are telephone wire baskets and tin can craft. These include an original Lesotho suit­case, a simple paraffin lamp and its development into candelabra, and a bunch of flowers.

Later with a more conscious intention to add to the Collection, the names of artists and crafts people began to be recorded. Traditional clay pots by Miriam Mbonambi and Nesta Nala, both well known potters, and a basket by Reuben Ndwandwe are in the Collection. All the bead-cloth sculptors are well represented, among them The Tennis Players and The Football Match by Mavis Mchunu, and Sizakele Mchunu's Singer Sewing Machine - perhaps the Collection's most prized piece.

The Collection has relatively few items of what is more conventionally described as fine art, partly because the African Art Centre does not have funds to buy more expensive art works and partly because the Durban Art Gallery has been a repository for interesting art bought from the African Art Centre. In the Collection is Michael Zondi's sculpture The Mine Worker (1965), Azaria Mbatha's The Revelation of St John, three early Tito Zungu ball point pen drawings and several of his decorated envelopes, three wonderful linocuts by John Muafangejo, among them Ford 250 Custom, and a Cyprian Shilakoe etching. Some beadwork - mostly contemporary - has been bought for its excellence, but there are a few traditional pieces. One is a simple and authentic love letter, and another the cocoa tin doll from the 1950s. A brass bead Udondo is probably the most valuable old traditional acquisition. This was brought in by an Isangoma (diviner) and offered for sale at around R10. Several 'fertility dolls' from Msinga are included. There have been no criteria in collecting except for the appeal of the very individual and personal expression of the artists or crafts people, and inevitably of my personal and intuitive choice.

It is a small but quite unique collection without pretentions. It comprises about 250 pieces and it is the intention that these will be documented and photographed when funds become available.

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