African Prints

John Ndevasia Muafangejo was born in 1943 in Etunda lo Nghadi in southern Angola. His early childhood followed Kwanyama tribal tradition—he tended his father's cattle while, at the same time, absorbing the rich oral, visual and social culture that was his heritage. Such experiences would form the future basis of much of his work. In 1955 his father died and his mother was forced to move across the border, first to Epinga and then on to St Mary's Mission in Odibo. From 1967 to 1969 Muafangejo undertook training at the Evangelical Lutheran Church Arts and Craft Centre at Rorke's Drift in Natal. These were not altogether happy years. He felt isolated, his English was poor—it was his third language—and he became well known for his erratic behaviour. In the years that followed, he was to suffer a number of mental breakdowns.

Between 1968 and 1987, Muafangejo created 262 known and a further 31 untraceable prints. The vast majority of these were linocuts. With their distinctive style and their highly autobiographical content they are a remarkable testament to a singularly visionary temperament. Their subject matter is wide ranging. It may be religious or biblical as in Adam and Eva 1968 or The angel chases Satan 1979; it may be tribal as in Party day 1983 or the wonderfully Etruscan-like Strong man is strangling the African lion 1978. There is the formal elegance of A rich man 1985, with its alternating blacks and whites, and the visual richness of Etosha Pan wild Iife 1982. And while Muafangejo denied that he was an overtly political artist, social and political commentary are never very far away— witness prints such as Hope and optimism in spite of the present difficulties 1984, The Battle of Rorke's Drift 1981 and New Archbishop Desmond Tutu enthroned 1986. On the other hand, he can be wickedly playful as in the proverbial The love is approaching 1974, or he may be contemplatively personal—He is thinking about ART? 1974.

Muafangejo's visual aesthetic is organised around complex rhythms, repetitions, harmonies and contrasts, the aim of which is to communicate, to touch or re-enliven a basic humanity that he believed resided in all of us. Since his sudden death at the age of forty-four in 1987 his international reputation has grown and the National Gallery is fortunate in having such a rich selection of his works.

James Serole Mphahlele was born at GaMphahlele near Pietersburg [Northern Transvaal] in 1954. He trained as a primary school teacher and taught for a few years before beginning to study art at the Ndaleni College of Education in 1980. In 1989 he had his first solo show at Gallery 21 in Johannesburg presenting Dialoga—a series of 25 linocuts.

Mphahlele has written: -Since we are on the brink of losing all that was best in African Art and African Tradition, who will take the initiative to retrieve that which has been lost to the West? Traditions have to be passed on to future generations.' Dialoga is about this passing on of tradition. It documents one of the great tribal initiation ceremonies. The name derives from the custom of smearing the bodies of each of the initiates with red ochre, after which they are called 'Dialoga'.

In his depiction of this ceremony, Mphahlele's images are more than documentation. Each is a powerful evocation of a particular moment, the drama of which is brilliantly conveyed by the highly energised interplay of figure and ground. For the exhibition, the prints have been deliberately arranged non-sequentially, to highlight their visual interconnectedness and to subvert the temptation to read them as merely illustrative, as secondary to the narrative they unfold.

There are other voices here as well—Austin Hleza, Lucky Sibiya and Cheri Samba, for example—each with its distinctive colour. As a group, they give us some idea of the vitality that lies at the heart of an intensely interesting and rich visual culture or cultures, something that until recently was simply beyond our grasp.

Mark Henshaw

Assistant Curator, International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books