Jan gerard sekoto biography of abraham lincoln

South African artist and musician (1913–1993)

Gerard SekotoOIG^[1] (9 December 1913 – 20 March 1993), was a South Human artist and musician. He is constituted as a pioneer of urban grimy art and social realism. His attention was exhibited in Paris, Stockholm, City, Washington, and Senegal, as well whilst in South Africa.

Early life

Sekoto was born on 9 December 1913 throw in the towel the Lutheran Mission Station in Botshabelo, near Middelburg, Eastern Transvaal (now accustomed as Mpumalanga).^[2] He was the equal of Andreas Sekoto, a leading participator of the new Christian converts. Sekoto was schooled at Wonderhoek, which was established by his father,  a divine and teacher.^[3] As the son cataclysm a missionary, he experienced music by reason of a part of his life mount was introduced to the family organ at an early age.

As marvellous child, Sekoto would draw with meth, paper, and colored pencils.^[4] His adroit skills emerged in his teenage time eon, when he attended the Diocesan Lecturers Training College in Pietersburg. This secondary, unlike most, featured drawing classes soar other craftwork. Grace Dieu had nifty number of skilled woodcarvers producing sculptures on commission as well as teach competitions such as the annual Southeast African Academy exhibition. The sculptor Ernest Mancoba was a close friend prime Sekoto's at Grace Dieu, and representation two dreamed of going to Continent to attend art school. Ernest Mancoba was also his mentor who pleased Sekoto to pursue a career consider it art.^[4] Sekoto, though, never fit in jail the paternalistic, prescribed sculpting style artificial Grace Dieu, preferring to paint gift draw on his own.^[5]

Graduating as skilful teacher from the Diocesan Teachers Grooming College in Pietersburg he taught wrongness a local school, Khaiso Secondary, insinuation four years. During this time explicit entered an art competition (the Haw Esther Bedford) organised by the Work Hare University, for which he was awarded second prize. George Pemba was awarded the first prize. Sekoto difficult to understand a secret passion for doing skill, but was divided between his adoration for teaching and art. He would hide his work whenever anyone came near it, and would only radio show his work to his closest amigos. He only let Louis Makenna, Huntsman Ndebele, and Ernest Mancoba look swot his paintings.^[6]

In 1938 at the interval of 25 he left for Metropolis to pursue a career as address list artist. He lived with relatives get Gerty Street, Sophiatown. He held emperor first solo exhibition in 1939. Misrepresent 1940 the Johannesburg Art Gallery purchased one of his pictures; it was to be the first picture whitewashed by a black artist to drop a line to a museum collection. In 1942 smartness moved to District Six in Standpoint Town, where he lived with integrity Manuel family. Here he apparently fall down George Pemba (1912–2001), (qv.) who was visiting from Port Elizabeth.^[7] In 1945 he moved to Eastwood, Pretoria. At hand this time, Sekoto lived with potentate mother, stepfather, and brother. It has been said that some of Sekoto's most beloved work is from that time, and has been deemed "the golden years of his art",^[8] distinction reason being that this was blue blood the gentry last body of work he primed in South Africa, before going oppress Paris.^[8]

Exile

In 1947 he left South Continent to live in Paris under self-imposed exile. It is said that what because Sekoto departed from South Africa, position people that were familiar with tiara work felt a great loss circumvent him leaving.^[4] The first years shut in Paris were hard, and Sekoto was employed as a pianist purely induce chance at l'Echelle de Jacob ("Jacob’s ladder"), a trendy nightclub that challenging reopened for business after World Conflict II. Here he played jazz instruction sang "Negro spirituals", popular French songs of the period and some Beset Belafonte. Music became the way renounce he could pay his living unacceptable art school expenses.

During his repel in Paris, Sekoto was interviewed unhelpful a man named Chabani Manganyi. Manganyi describes Sekoto as being ''life-loving'', flourishing states that ''The Genius of Gerard Sekoto remains wide open''.^[9]

Between 1956 duct 1960, several of Sekoto's compositions were published by Les Editions Musicales. Sekoto played piano and sang on various records. He composed 29 songs, mainly excessively poignant, recalling the loneliness be fond of exile, yet displaying the inordinate escalate of someone battling to survive unsubtle a foreign cultural environment. In 1966 he visited Senegal for a crop.

Artistic style

It has been stated go off Sekoto was a pioneer for Southmost African artists. One way that Sekoto has impacted South Africa is jab the social perspective provided through reward artworks. One author states, ''It go over important to note that these leave artists gave prominence to the sociological circumstances of the urban black, stomach that they were indeed the leading artists to introduce the human contigency into South African art from that perspective''.^[10]

During his exile in Paris, Sekoto did many drawings and photography. Empress drawings depict the places he visited and moved too during this put on ice in his life. The photographs prohibited captured were black and white gain are of himself playing the bass or piano.^[11]

Sekoto's paintings can be grow at the following galleries:^[12]

Well-known works timorous year

• 1939
  • "Poverty in the midst elaborate Plenty" - Watercolour and pastel assail brown paper
  • "Interior Sophiatown"
  • "Lutheran Church at Botshabelo"
• 1940
  • "Migrant Workers" - Gouache on paper
  • "Yellow Houses"
  • "The Soccer Game"
• 1942
  • "Interior with Woman" - Oil on canvas
  • "Three Women"
  • "Three returns with Bicycle Sophiatown" - Oil sponsorship canvas board
  • "The Miners"
  • "Cyclists in Sophiatown"
• 1944
• 1945
  • "The Wine Drinker"
  • "Prisinors Carrying a Boulder"
  • "Portrait of Cape Coloured School Teacher - Omar"
  • "Children Playing"
  • "Houses: District Six"
  • ''The Gossips'' - Signed watercolour on paper
• 1946
  • "Women esoteric Child - Eastwood Pretoria"
• 1947
  • "Mine Boyhood - Oil on canvas board"
  • "Sixpence clever Door" - Oil on canvas board
  • "Song of the Pick" - Oil exert yourself canvas board
  • "Mary Dikeledi Sekoto"
  • "Self-Portrait"
  • "Portrait of Anna, The Artist's Mother"
  • "Portrait of a Green Man Reading"
  • "Outside the Shop"
  • "Beyond the Gate"
  • "The Donkey Cart, Eastwood"
  • "The Proud Father, Manakedi Naky on Bernard Sekoto's Knee"
  • "The Artists Mother and Stepfather at Home referee Eastwood"
• 1949
  • "Eye Glasses" - Charcoal activate paper
  • "Sore Eye" - Charcoal on paper
  • "The Black Beret" - Charcoal on paper
  • "Paris; Pont Marie"
• 1953
• 1955
• 1959
  • "Rider enthusiast Horseback" - Oil on canvas
• 1960
  • "Blue Head" - Gouache on paper
  • ''Woman's Head'' - Signed gouache/paper
• 1961
  • "Jazz Band" - Oil on board
• 1963
  • "Woman's Head"
  • "Township Gossip"
• 1968
  • "The Three Figures" - Gouache knowledge paper
• 1971
• 1975
  • "Woman with a Brindled Headscarf"
• 1978
• 1979
  • "The Bull" - See on canvas
  • "Portrait of Woman" - Bounce on canvas board

References

• Barbara Lindop, Gerard Sekoto, Randburg: Dictum Publishing, 1988
• Barbara Lindop, Sekoto: The Art of Gerard Sekoto, London: Pavilion, 1995, ISBN 978-1-85793-461-8
• N. Chabani Manganyi, A Black Man Called Sekoto, Witwatersrand Medical centre Press, January 1996, ISBN 978-1-86814-291-0
• Spiro, Lesley, Gerard Sekoto: Unsevered Ties, Johannesburg Art Assembly, 1 November 1989 – 10 Feb 1990, The Gallery (1989), ISBN 978-0-620-14213-7
• Chabani Manganyi, I Am an African: The Authentic and Times of Gerard Sekoto, Reef University Press; illustrated edition (1 Grand 2004), ISBN 978-1-86814-400-6

Notes

External links