During the 1970s John Muafangejo supplied the Art Centre with linocut prints done while he was a student at the Rorke's Drift Art School, and then when he was working at home in Namibia. Born in 1943 in Etunda lo Nghadi, Muafangejo attended a number of mission schools and completed Standard Six at St Mary's Anglican Mission in Odibo.

It was there that his talent was spotted, and it was arranged for him to study at Rorke's Drift in 1967. On completing his course, Muafangejo returned to Odibo in 1970, and taught art at the mission school for four years. In 1974 he was invited back to Rorke's Drift as an artist-in-residence.

In March 1975 an exhibition comprising 13 prints was held at the African Art Centre. According to the list of the titles, prices ranged from R8 to R17.50. by 1990 Muafangejo’s prints were selling for R1000 to R6000. Many Durban collectors recall with satisfaction their purchases of Muafangejo prints - a case yet again of it’s Never Too Early.

'Notes I wrote on the lists of prints read:

"John Muafangejo...proved his versatility with a tremendous sculpture and some large colourful oil paintings, which were exhibited and sold at the 1974 Rorke's Drift exhibition at the Durban Art Gallery. His essentially unique artistic expression remains uninfluenced. Further biographical notes seem unnecessary when these pictures tell, in a very special way, so much more about him."

This is true of much of the work of Muafangejo who, in addition to the messages and thoughts he expressed so strongly in the pictorial elements of his work. often incised a written text into the linoleum. This is demonstrated, for example, in his graphic written description of the hazards of buying a second hand car in the linocut ford 250 Custom.

In a Daily News review of the exhibition, Andrew Verster wrote of Muafangejo's work Interview at Cape Town University:

"This work graphically describes the terror we have all felt in similar circumstances. The Board is seen as a many headed monster, with stereotyped faces with identical staring eyes, and hands bristling with a weaponry of pens and pencils as large and as menacing as firearms.

"This presence occupies most of the room, forcing the image of the candidate practically out of the picture, to the limits of the right hand margin. This purely formal device parallels in aesthetic terms the actual sensation be is trying to portray, and thus raises what could so easily be merely illustration to the level of art."

Muafangejo returned to Ovambo in 1976, and a collection of his prints selected by Walter Battis was published. In 1977 he moved to Windhoek, where he continued working.

A review in 1981 in the Quardian by renowned British art critic, Edward Lucie-Smith, of an exhibition of Muafangejo linocuts in the Kelly Fine Art Gallery, London, illustrates the international recognition that he had achieved by that time. He wrote:

"... One of the most exciting of contemporary South African artists is John Muafangejo who lives not in South Africa itself, but in Windhoek, the republic's outpost in Namibia...A very striking aspect of his work is its expressionism. This is innate in traditional African art, but translated into the terms of the linocut medium, it results in images which often look very much like the most classical kind of Cjerman expressionism.

"There are differences, of course. Is one looks more closely one sees that Muafangejo, perhaps surprisingly in view of the political circumstances, is more relaxed and humorous. His prints have a strain of naive autobiography which at moments make him seem like an African Hockney. He seems to be an artist of great quality."

With the permission of the artist, a memorable calendar of 12 reproductions of linocuts by John Muafangejo was published by the Institute of Race Relations in 1983.

In 1986 Muafangejo began constructing a small house for himself in the Katutura township adjoining Windhoek, which he completed the following year. In 1987 he was selected as the Guest Artist for the 1988 Standard Bank National Arts Festival.

Tragically, he died in November 1987. After his death a Trust was set up to ensure that his work could not be misused, and that his family would receive any benefits due.

At the opening of a retrospective exhibition of Muafangejo's work, Professor Alan Crump said:

He was one of South Africa's most creative artists and unquestionably one of the three greatest exponents of the linoprint technique in this country's printmaking history, the other two being Tizana Mbatha and Jacob Pierneef."

A remarkable, definitive record of the life and work of Muafangejo by Ord Levinson, titled I Was Loneliness, was published by Struik Publishers in 1992.