“Even abstract art by a black practitioner was a declaration of war against being stereotyped, bearing in mind that abstraction has, for centuries, always been Africa’s premier form of expression. Why would our ancestral form of expression suddenly be deemed ‘foreign’ to the black man of the 20th century?” – Louis Maqhubela (Martin 2010:16)
Louis Maqhubela was not the first black artist from South Africa that recognised abstraction as a way out of figurative modes of painting back to ancestral representations. Ernest Mancoba that left South Africa in 1939 became a member of the CoBrA group founded in Paris in 1948 (Martin 2010:16). In many ways this search for abstract representation introduced to Maqhubela while still in high school by Ephraim Ngatane was a way to resist Apartheid[1] discrimination and claiming to be part of a universal paradigm. Louis Maqhubela became one of the first black artists to cross the divide between black and white artists in South Africa. His work was recognized by the South African art world as being on par with any other artist at the time in South Africa and the world.
Louis Khehla Maqhubela was born in 1939 at the Mc Cord hospital in Durban. His Xhosa parents, Thamsanqa and Violet Maqhubela lived in Baumanville a small settlement of 120 low income homes built in 1915. From a young age Maqhubela recalls being introduced to vibrant colours and intricate geometric designs, as observed in his environment. For example, the colourful regalia of the richshaw[2] and the beautiful izighaza (decorated Zulu earplugs) dangling from women’s ear lobes. In 1949 his father was given a job opportunity in Johannesburg which lead to their family being sent to live with his aunt, Lydia Ndawo, in Matitiele in the Eastern Cape. After three years spent reconnecting with his Xhosa roots, he and the rest of their family was able to join their father in Johannesburg, settling in Orlando, Soweto (Martin 2010:7).
In 1957, while still at Nakene High School, Maqhubela, encouraged by Ephraim Ngatane, joined Durant Sihlali’s weekend painters’ group. He later enrolled to study art at Polly Street Art Centre where he studied under Cecil Skotnes, Sydney Khumalo and Ephraim Ngatane until 1959. During his late teens Maqhubela was already receiving recognition for his drawings and paintings of township scenes. In 1959 he entered the Rembrandt Tobacco Company’s Art Bursary Competition. Six hundred learners from all races participated and Maqhubela was awarded second place. He received £60 for a drawing titled, The followers of Bacchus. Shortly after this win his work was selected for the first Artist of Fame and Promise exhibition at the Lawrence Adler Gallery in Johannesburg(Martin 2010:7).
Polly Street played an important role in breaking the cultural isolation that were experienced by black artists in South Africa during the years of Apartheid. Maqhubela (Martin 2010:9) explained this contribution as follows: “Polly Street became our magical password, our ID, to break into the exclusive echelons of the Johannesburg art scene working to exhibit as equals. That is the legacy of Cecil Skotnes.” Skotnes also facilitated numerous commercial projects that made it possible for the artists that studied at Polly Street to continue their artist careers by earning much needed money on the side. For example he facilitated a public art project in Soweto were 30 mosaic panels were commissioned from Maqhubela by the housing division in Soweto for hospitals, schools, halls and bar lounges (Martin 2010:10).
In the years that followed Maqhubela experienced a lot of success. He was included in numerous group exhibitions at the Adler Fielding Gallery, the Henri Lidchi Gallery and the Johannesburg Art Gallery. He was singled out in a review of The Second Bijou Paintings Exhibition in 1960 at the Adler Fielding Gallery, that included work by Walter Battis, Eleanor Esmond-White, Sydney Goldblatt, Irma Stern and Gerard Sekoto as “an entirely new discovery” (Martin 2010:8). Another review written on the exhibition, Township Life as seen by three Africans, held at the same gallery in 1962, compared Maqhubela with Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
After leaving Polly Street Art Centre Maqhubela searched for other mentors that could explain abstract art to him. From 1963-1964 he visited Guiseppe Cattaneo at the University of Witwatersrand. Cattaneo had a big influence on his drawing style enabling him to break free from what he learned at Polly Street. In 1966 Maqhubela won first prize at the Adler Fielding Gallery’s annual Artists of Fame and Promise exhibition. This was an incredibly significant win, because he walked away with the overall prize of R1000 and return tickets to Europe even though there was a separate prize for “non-white” artists. He left South Africa for Europe that same year for three months (Martin 2010:12). During his trip to Europe he visited a major exhibition by Paul Klee in Paris. He also visited Gerard Sekoto and Douglas Portway, both South African artists that were living in exile. Paul Klee’s exhibition and finding a kindred spirit in Portway convinced Maqhubela that abstract art would be the medium through which he would explore the spiritual and metaphysical realms of art making (Martin 2010:14). After his return to South Africa Maqhubela participated in numerous exhibitions across South Africa. He was one of the recipients of the Oppenheimer Trust Awards, held two solo exhibitions at the Lidchi Art Gallery in Johannesburg and a solo exhibition at Gallery International in Cape Town. He also participated in many group exhibitions held at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, Helen de Leeuw Gallery, Gallery International, as well as exhibitions abroad at the National Gallery of Rhodesia in Salisbury and the Camden Arts Centre in London.
Maqhubela left South Africa for Spain in 1973, before settling in London in 1978, and furthering his studies at Goldsmiths College in 1984–5, and the Slade School of Art between 1985 and 1988. The reasons for leaving South Africa was the unbearable Apartheid laws that made it impossible for his wife Tana Lephlina Dube to live with him in Johannesburg. Still resident in London, Maqhubela runs a successful art practice via his own website. His work reflects the philosophical quality of international modernism with some reference to the country of his youth (Ivor Powel).
In an article written by Neville Dubow (Martin 2010:15) for Artlook 24 in 1969 Maqhubela was referred to as the most interesting artist of his generation stating that “Maqhubela…has succeeded in making the imaginative leap…without merely exchanging one cliché for another, he has exchanged the Township for the world, the ethnic categorisation for the universal.”
[1] Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 until the early 1990s. Apartheid was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap (or white supremacy), which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation’s minority white population.
[2]A small covered 2-wheeled vehicle usually for one passenger that is pulled by one man and that was used originally in Japan.
Sources:
- Berman, Esmé. 1983. Art and Artists of South Africa. Cape Town/Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema
- Martin, Marilyn. 2010. A Vigil of Departure – Louis Khela Maqhubela – a retrospective 1960-2010. Johannesburg: Standard Bank of South Africa
- Louis Maqhubela. [O]. Available: http://revisions.co.za/biographies/louis-maqhubela/#.X0NmUX7iuUl/Accessed 23 August 2020.
