In July 1980 Wiseman Mbambo exhibited 13 pieces of sculpture at the African-Art Centre. A teacher by profession, Wiseman trained at the Ndaleni Art School. From 1973 until his 1980 exhibition he worked as a full-time sculptor in Inanda, where he also operated a ferry service with a boat he had built.
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During this productive period Mbambo brought most of his work to the Art Centre, and his beautifully finished forms in indigenous woods were much sought after. For financial reasons he had to return to teaching and, as a busy headmaster, he has not been able to continue with his personal artistic career. However, he has been able to foster art at his school.
The catalogue for the 1980 exhibition notes that Head of a Young Man was not on the exhibition because it had been bought just before the opening by Chief Buthelezi for presentation to Harry Oppenheimer at the official opening of the Mangosuthu Technikon.
Andrew Verster reviewed the exhibition as 'most praiseworthy" and singled out two works for particular comment - The Orator, which was bought by the Durban Art Gallery, and Iron Will both single heads in mthombothi wood. He said:
"The Orator is a very cool statement about an emotionally charged subject. All emphasis is centred on the open mouth, a near per feet circular hole gouged deep in the wood. The rest of the features are blurred. They melt into each other, their flattened distortions reminiscent of a head covered with a stocking. From the side the effect is even more sinister and more powerful. Iron Will uses the same ideas, the richly modelled lips, this time mute and defiant...However disturbing the message, one is irresistibly drawn to the beauty of the shapes and the loving care that has made each smooth detail. In every way a remarkable achievement and a milestone for this artist."
It was the personal statement of Wiseman Mbambo's sculpture that impressed Verster. when his review of that exhibition is contrasted with an exhibition of sculpture by Duke Ketye at the Natal Society of Arts Gallery in the same year. Verster found much in Ketye's work that was derivative. He said:
"...Then there is the question of style, and here Ketye skips through the aesthetic handbook with such energy that it is daunting unravelling the threads. In a sculpture at one moment we have a kind of expressionist cubism...in another we have sty Used realism...then without warning we are in the 13th Century Gothic in the Christ Crucified".
It seems unfair to quote the highlight of a good review with a small portion of a not favourable review, bearing in mind that no artist is in top form all the time. But it makes a point which is relevant to some of the works of black artists at the time: drawing attention to the value of the personal statement as against derivation. This point, of course, it not only applicable to black artists.
The US Consular Corps
The United States consular corps in Durban has consistently been interested in, and has supported, the work of the Africans Art Centre. A general observation is that Americans generally have a greater appreciation of African art and craft than people ..from some other Western countries - British visitors, for example, display a far more conservative attitude in what they buy.
The United States consular home has been made available on a number of occasions for exhibitions. In 1974, an exhibition was hosted by Consul General Ed Holmes, and Mary Holmes. In 1980, Consul General Alan Logan and his wife, Nicole, held an exhibition featuring silkscreen fabrics of Rorke’s Drift.
The personal statement of the artist, formally trained or otherwise, has - where possible - been a criterion of the acceptance of work by the Art Centre.
