Ntombi Mdunge (formerly known as Daphne Biyela) at Ndaleni art school, 1978
5.25. Nathaniel Ntombela and Rightwell Temba examine student works, 1966
5.26. Exhibition in the main hall, Indaleni Training College, 1971
5.27. Exhibition at the Metropolitan Methodist Hall, Pietermaritzburg, 1975
5.28. Alex Mauwane at the exhibition, 1978
6.1. Ndaleni residents and Monster, by Silverman Jara, 2013
6.2. Practice teaching, Indaleni Practising School, 1968
6.3. Solomon Sedibane at Ndaleni art school “refresher course,” 1968
6.4. Students of Amelia Shishuba with grasswork, 1970s
6.5. Students of Godfrey Mpulu, with masks, 1970s
6.6. Lorna Peirson at home in Howick, KwaZulu-Natal, 2013
6.7. Students of Elijah Zwane building a hut, Transvaal, 1971
7.1. Mother and Child, by Dumile Feni, 1966
7.2. Selby Mvusi, with his Adam and Eve (1955), 1958
7.3. Introspection I, by Paul Sibisi, 1972
7.4. Group shot, Ndaleni art school, late 1970s
7.5. Leslie Cindi at Ndaleni art school, 1973
Ep.1. Atomic Sausages, by Cyprian Ramosime, early 1960s
Ep.2. Mural at P. J. Simelane School, Dobsonville, Soweto, 2013
Ep.3. Entranceway to girls’ hostel, photograph by Cedric Nunn, 2009
Ep.4. Statue by unknown Ndaleni art school student, photograph by Cedric Nunn, 2009
Ep.5. Students of the Indaleni School for the Deaf meeting in the main hall, photograph by Cedric Nunn, 2014
Ep.6. Artwork by the students of Busi Mkhize, masonite and plastic, Indaleni School for the Deaf, 2014
Ep.7. Birdbath, by Phanuel Pooe, photograph by Cedric Nunn, 2009
GALLERY
Christ, by Phillip Ndwandwe, 1964, photograph by Cedric Nunn, 1993
Sower, by Abiah Ramadi, 1966, photograph by Cedric Nunn, 1993
Garden Water Tap, by Wiseman Mbambo, 1965, photograph by Cedric Nunn, 1993
Birdbath, by Phanuel Pooe, 1965, photograph by Cedric Nunn, 1993
Mural by Sophie Nsuza, 1963, photograph by Cedric Nunn
Solomon Sedibane leads a woodworking group at Ndaleni art school, 1968, unknown photographer
Detail of a Bible scene by Francis Halala and Jacob Masike, 1962, photograph by Cedric Nunn, 2009
Giraffe mosaic by Gabriel Vilakazi, 1961, photograph by the author, 2011
MAP
1.1. Southern Africa. Map by Jennie Miller
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is a study of art education in South Africa, under segregation and apartheid. It considers the community of artists and educators who came together to create at numerous places—in Bulwer near the Drakensberg, in Pietersburg in the far northern Transvaal, in Johannesburg, and especially at Indaleni, outside Richmond in what is today KwaZulu-Natal—under the considerable cloud of white supremacy and structural poverty. It is the story of a community that nurtured its own ideals and practices and promoted nothing less than a new way of being in the world. The art teachers whose stories follow have taught me a tremendous amount about creativity, consciousness, and aesthetics; I hope that I have learned some of their lessons about being as well. At the very least, I share with them the experience of being nurtured and enriched by a beloved community.
Figure A.1 Easel painting at the Ndaleni Art School, from a mural painted by Hamlet Hobe, 1960, photograph by the author
This project began in the basement of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), with the discovery of a book about the artist Dan Rakgoathe and the promise of another archive—of his alma mater, the Ndaleni art school, a few hundred kilometers away in Durban. I am forever indebted to the incredible team of archivists who helped me find my way: Jo Berger at the JAG; Michelle Pickover and team at Historical Papers, University of the Witwatersrand; and especially Mwelela Cele, Senzo Mkhize, and Nellie Somers at the Killie Campbell Collection at the University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal. Nellie was especially generous with her time, given my limited stay in Durban and the sheer volume of the Ndaleni material. I am also grateful to archivists at the Mayibuye Center at the University of the Western Cape, the South African National Gallery, the South African National Archives in Pretoria, the University of Fort Hare archives in Alice, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University. Michael Gardiner provided me with critical documentation, as did Brendan Bell of the Tatham Art Gallery, Lorna Peirson, and her former colleague Craig Lancaster.
Lorna Peirson was also incredibly generous with her time, humoring me through numerous visits and an unceasing barrage of questions. I am grateful. She passed away in mid-2015 and although it saddens me that she will never see this book, I will always remember the look on her face while I read a draft of the first chapter to her when last we met. I am grateful as well to the numerous former Ndaleni students and other South African artists who took the time to speak with me. Not all of their stories made it into this book, but each of them is responsible for whatever sense I have been able to make of the terrain of creativity in twentieth-century South Africa. All errors are, of course, my own. Special thanks to Bongi Dhlomo, for her friendship and her many lessons about what it means to create. I was fortunate that my long-standing relationship with the Steve Biko Foundation granted me the opportunity to meet and spend time with Bongi, as well as to present a version of this work at the foundation’s wonderful new center in King Williams Town, which was an amazing experience.
I benefited from presenting parts of this book to engaged and critical audiences and colleagues at Emory University’s Seminar on African History, the African History and Anthropology Workshop at the University of Michigan, the University Seminar on Africa at Columbia University, Yale University’s Council on African Studies Seminar, the Witwatersrand Institute of Social and Economic Research WISH seminar, the University of Johannesburg Historical Studies Seminar, the African Studies Working Group at the University of Notre Dame, the
