Selbourne Charlton Sobizwa Mvusi (known as Selby) was born in 1929 in Edendale, Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal. He matriculated from Adams College at Edendale, near Amanzimtoti in 1948. From 1949-1951 Mvusi studied for a Bachelor of Fine Arts at University of Fort Hare in Alice, Eastern Cape. In 1952, he did a University Education Diploma (UED) at Rhodes University in Grahamstown.

Then in 1953, Mvusi enrolled to do a special course in art education at Ndaleni Teachers Training College, where he benefited from the guidance of Alfred Ewan, a landscape painter, and Peter Atkins, a sculptor. Mvusi then registered to do a correspondence BA degree in Fine Arts at The University of South Africa (UNISA) in 1954 while he started teaching at Loram Bantu Secondary School in Durban.

He did not finish his BA in Fine Art, but through UNISA he worked under the supervision of Harold Strachan, a professional artist. In addition, he attended Neil Sacks’ general art classes offered at the Bantu, Indian and Coloured Arts Group in Durban (BICA) and studied art privately under Julia Norman, David McNab and Nils Solberg. In 1956, Mvusi exhibited at the First Quadrennial Exhibition of South African Art, and in 1957, he was the recipient of an award from the Ella Lyman Cabot Trust that enabled him to continue his postgraduate studies in Pennsylvania and Boston.

The following quote, that appears in The Fifties People of South Africa, a book compiled and edited by Jurgen Schadeberg in 1987, was expressed by one of Mvusi’s peers in reference to this award:

‘Selby rocketed to fame overnight after he had presented his oil "Parents of the World, Adam and Eve" (a painting depicting a black Adam and Eve), for an American contest. Selby Mvusi, a tall, gangling painter and sculptor, lived up to the traditional idea of the artist. Lean; a little whiff of a beard peeping half heartedly out of his chin; reticent and shy at times; bubbling and frothy at others. He spoke with an American accent and his frightened eyes belied his confident manner’.

Figure 1: "The Funeral," charcoal (1961). Source: www.archives.gov

From 1957-1959, Mvusi studied for his Masters Degree in Art Education under Prof. Viktor Lowenfeld, at Pennsylvania State University, USA. He went on to complete his Masters Degree in Fine Arts at the University of Boston, in 1960. Then, in 1961 Mvusi took up a post as lecturer at Clarke College, Atlanta, Georgia. The alarming apartheid legislation passed in South Africa and the tragic events of the Sharpeville Massacre caused Mvusi to decide against returning to South Africa. His family therefore moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where he taught art for a year at Goromonzi High School.

From 1962 to 1964, he lectured in the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Science and Technology at Kumasi in Ghana. At the time he wrote a comprehensive paper for UNESCO on the education of industrial designers in low-income countries.

In 1965, Mvusi was appointed senior lecturer in the Fine Arts Department at the University of Nairobi. One of Mvusi’s students at the University of Nairobi had the following to say about him:

‘At this time the South African exile community in Nairobi rotated around four families: the Mphahleles, the Mvusis, the Masilelas and the Mbathas. On weekends the families would visit each other. I remember Selby Mvusi as a regal, serious and determined person. In other words, he did not tolerate any kind of nonsense. He was one of the intellectual lights of Nairobi. He was a leading light of the expatriate community in the city, a community that consisted of Europeans, Africans, Indians and Asians… In unusual ways, Selby Mvusi had an extraordinary impact on people. Even I at that relatively young age recognized in Selby Mvusi a person of unusual talent’.

At the First World Festival of Negro Art held in Dakar in 1966, Mvusi read a paper entitled ‘Current revolution and future prospects’. In 1967, he represented Africa at a conference on ‘Problem growth or growth problem’ held at the International Centre for the Communication Arts and Sciences (ICCAS) in New York. Among the luminaries participating were the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, the writer Umberto Eco and the painter Victor Vasarely. Apart from being a theoretician who wrote in depth on industrial and functional design, Selby Mvusi was at heart a painter, printmaker, sculptor and poet.

Mvusi died tragically in a car accident in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1967.

References

• Bunn, D. (1999). Land & Lives opening address. South African National Gallery's newsletter [Online]. Available at: iziko.org.za. [Accessed 24 February 2009]
• Interview with Selby Mvusi and Albert Adams. African Writers' Club [Online]. Available at: sounds.bl.uk. [Accessed 24 February 2009]
• Proud, H (2006). Revisions: Expanding the Narrative of South African Art. South African History Online and UNISA Press. p.138.
• Selby Mvusi. The Sophiatown Renaissance 1952-1960 [Online]. Available at: pitzer.edu. [Accessed 24 February 2009]

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