“From my very young days, I needed freedom – almost at any cost!” – Gerard Sekoto (Lindop 1995: 7)
It was this desire for freedom expressed by Sekoto from a young age that pulled him away from his roots in search of that which would make him a better, more successful artist. This search for what he believed would be freedom took him from his family in rural Transvaal to Sophiatown in Johannesburg, District Six in Cape Town, Pretoria and ultimately Paris. Ironically Sekoto could never free himself from the country of his birth. Lesley Spiro (Borman 2019:1) wrote about this contradiction found in Sekoto’s work. He commented that he provides us “with the most intimate reflection of these travels and yet in many ways it suggests that he never left at all, for South Africa remained the dominant image in his paintings.”
Gerard Sekoto was born on 9 December 1913, second son to Andreas and Anne Sekoto, at the Lutheran Mission Station of Botshabelo near Middelburg in the Eastern Transvaal. When he was five, his father, a teacher, was transferred to a mission school on a farm called ‘Wonderhoek‘. Sekoto’s first love was music and he learned to read music and compose his own tunes from an early age (Dolby 2005:3).
In 1928 he started training as a teacher at the Botshabelo Training Institute where he made his first coloured pencil drawings. His brother also studied there in 1930 and was expelled from the collage. Out of protest for what happened to his brother Sekoto transferred his studies to the Diocesan Training Collage near Pietermaritzburg. Ernest Mancoba[1] was a student at the college until 1924 and ended up taking a teaching position after he completed his studies until 1929 after which he took a teaching position at Khaiso Secondary School near Polokwane. After qualifying in 1934 Sekoto also taught at Khaiso Secondary School, where he met Mancoba. His friendship with Mancoba had a lasting influence on him and it was Mancoba that encouraged him to go to Paris (Dolby 2005:3). At Khaiso Sekoto started using water colours. He would draw and paint late into the night by candlelight. In 1937 he entered a work for the May Esher Bedford Art Competition. Winning second prize built his confidence as an artist, and after his father’s death in 1938 Sekoto moved to Sophiatown in Johannesburg where he started his career as a full-time artist (Dolby 2005:4).
He met the painter Judith Gluckman at the Gainsborough Gallery in 1940, and she introduced him to oil paints (Borman 2019:1). Living in Sophiatown transformed Sekoto’s paintings. The Urban intensity and excitement of Sophiatown reflected in his work. In 1940 the Johannesburg Art Museum purchased the painting, Yellow Houses, at the African Academy Exhibition at Selbourne Hall in Johannesburg. This was the first painting by a black South African artist purchased for a museum collection (Dolby 2005:6). In 1942 Sekoto had a successful solo exhibition at the Gainsborough Gallery in Johannesburg and made enough money to visit Cape Town.
In Cape Town Sekoto lived with the Manuel family opposite the Roeland street jail (now the state archives). The jail provided a lot of content on social injustice in South Africa and highly influenced the mood of the work produced while living in Cape Town. He also became associated with several artists for example: Gregoire Boonzaier, Lippy Lipshitz, Louis Maurice and Solly Disner who were part of the ‘New Group’ (Dolby 2005:7).
In 1945 Sekoto moved to Eastwood outside Pretoria where he lived with his mother and stepfather. In 1947 he had an extraordinarily successful solo exhibition at Christies Gallery in Pretoria and a near sell-out solo exhibition at the Gainsborough Gallery in Johannesburg. The money Sekoto earned from these exhibitions funded his move to Europe. The same year, at the age of 33, he travelled by boat from Cape Town via London to Paris. At the same time, an exhibition of South African Art was being held at the Tate Gallery in London and Sekoto’s painting ‘Six pence a door’ was on show. The Queen Mother visited the exhibition and commented on how much she liked the Sekoto painting (Dolby 2005:9)
Once in Paris, Sekoto found a part time job playing the piano in a bar-restaurant on the Rue du Sommerand at night and went to Académie de la Grande Chaumierè during the day where he met the Brazilian artist Wilson Tibero. He painted in his cold, dark hotel room, played the piano every night to earn money and struggled terribly because he could not speak French. Things were not going as planned leading to excessive drinking and poor-quality work produced by the once confident artist. His first two solo exhibitions in Paris was critical and financial failures. The first solo exhibition was held in 1948 at the French Overseas Colonial House, and the second was held in 1949 at Galerie Else-Clausen in the Quai Malaquais (Borman 2019:1).
These two failed exhibitions lead to a complete mental breakdown during which Sekoto tried to commit suicide. His friend Raymond de Cardonne owner of Galérie Else-Clausen ended up submitting him to the St. Anne’s Mental Hospital. While he was in hospital an American woman bought one of his paintings from the Galérie Else-Claussen and asked her journalist friend to do an article about him for Time Magazine. The article appeared in October 1949, resulting in more sales, and allowing Sekoto’s situation to improve (Dolby 2005:9&10).
When Sekoto left St Anne’s hospital Raymond organised for him to stay with his Marthe Baillon (nee Hennebert). She and Sekoto had an intimate relationship that lasted 30 years until her death in 1982. He had a large studio in her apartment and continued to paint scenes of South African life because he wanted to keep his own identity and not lose his roots. He took part in various group exhibitions in Paris as well as in Sweden, Denmark, and Italy and even Pretoria in 1950 at the Vincent Gallery (Dolby 2005:14). In 1953 he could stop playing piano at night and had his first solo exhibition in Paris at Galérie Saint Pacide. Mancoba attended this exhibition and was considered a huge success marking the beginning of a new future as an artist in Paris (Dolby 2005:15).
In 1966 Présence Africaine had a conference in Dakar, Senegal. Sekoto attended this conference. It was his first visit to another African country. After the conference Sekoto and Tiberio stayed in Dakar for a year during which they made several artworks that was exhibited at the Daniel Sorano Thèâtre (Lindop:95 & 101). He had to return to Paris in 1967 to take care of Marthe who was extremely sick. In the next few years after his return he held solo exhibitions in the Galérie Christine Colin, Galérie Marthe Nochy and the Galérie du Marais in Paris and participated in group exhibitions in various cities in Europe.
After Marthe died Sekoto had to move out of her apartment. In 1983 he moved to Corbeil just outside of Paris, but two months later he was involved in a serious car accident and his right leg was broken. He stayed in the hospital in Corbeil for three years.
After recovering from this accident, he moved to a commune for artists called La Maison Nationale de Artistes, in a small town called Nogent-sur-Marne, near Paris in 1987. The next year a book about Sekoto’s life was written by Barbara Lindop and was published in South Africa. In 1989 the Johannesburg Art Gallery organised a large exhibition of his work, titled Gerard Sekoto: Unsevered Ties.
Gerard Sekoto died on 20 March 1993 and was buried in the Nogent-sur-Marne cemetery.
“Art is a human virtue and I have given my whole self to it, for it promotes understanding amongst races rather than destroy it” – Gerard Sekoto (Borman 2019:1)
[1] Ernest (Methuen) Mancoba (29 August 1904 – 25 October 2002) was an avant-garde artist, born in South Africa, who spent most of his life in Europe. He was probably South Africa’s first professional Black modern artist and exhibited from the late 1920s onward.
Sources:
- Lindop, Barbara. 1995. Gerard Sekoto. My Life and Work. Cape Town: ViVa Books
- Dolby, Joe. 2005. Gerard Sekoto – from the Paris studio. Cape Town: Iziko South Africa National Gallery
- Gerard Sekoto. 2019. [O]. Available: http://www.johansborman.co.za/sa-masters/sekoto-gerard/accessed 20 September 2020
- Gerard Sekoto. 2019. [O]. Available: http://www.johansborman.co.za/artist-biographies/sekoto-gerard/accessed 19 Sep 2020
- Blue Head. 2019. [O]. Available: http://www.johansborman.co.za/exhibition-work/art-that-inspires-our-10-20-anniversary-gallery-i/blue_head__65_x_50_cm.jpg/accessed 14 September 2020
