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given ample space in the main Courtauld Gallery and curated by Lillian Chinowona.
Arranged in an interesting, thought-provoking display in the main lower space of the gallery are classic works by African and European master artists. Here, Rodin bronzes are juxtaposed with a Tapfuma Gutsa sculpture in wood and a Giacometti with an Arthur Azevedo.
Works by Mocambiquan Malangatana Valente Ngwenya, Zimbabwean/South African Selby Mvusi, Nigerian, Prince Twins Seven Seven and Ghanaian Professor Abdilade Glover are seen in the same context as the European Master Artists. African Master Artist, Mozambican painter Malangatana Ngwenya (1936-2010), is still known today as one of Africa’s most illustrious contemporary artists. He died three years ago, aged 74, on Christmas Day after a long illness.
Born Malangatana Valente Ngwenya in 1936, he was known for his large canvases and dramatic stylised neo-African figurative paintings and was also a sculptor and poet. Many of his works were commentaries on the socio-cultural and political events in his country, which gained its independence from Portugal in 1975. Malangatana spent his early life working as a herder, apprentice traditional healer, domestic servant and ballboy at a tennis club.
Encouraged by Portuguese colonists he turned to art, documenting Mozambique’s independence and the years of civil war that followed. During the struggle for independence he was imprisoned for 18 months for being a member of the Liberation Front of Mozambique, known as Frelimo. After it became the country’s first ruling political party, he served as a parliamentary deputy from 1990 to 1994. In 1997 he was named a Unesco Artist for Peace.
Nigerian artist Twins Seven Seven – whose real name is Prince, Chief Bamidele Taiwo Olaniyi Oyewale Toyeje Oyelale Osuntoki (1944-2011) — was a painter, sculptor, textilist, actor, singer, dancer, playwright and lecturer on Yoruba culture of Nigeria.
He was also a founder member of the Oshogbo School of Art and an adjudicator at the Zimbabwe Heritage Exhibition of 1986 held during the eighth Summit of Non-Aligned Movement in Harare. He was discovered by art and anthropology scholars, from Germany, namely Uli and Geraldine Beier in 1964 — who encouraged him to join the Mbari-Mbayo group of artists who later became the core source of the Oshogbo School in Nigeria. He received the Unesco Peace Prize on Africa Day, May 25 2005, in Paris.
The other African old master, Ghanaian Professor Abdilade Glover continues to produce palette knife paintings of women in a colourful impasto. Here, mesmerising mirages of women selling their wares in the dust and mayhem of the African markets of Ghana are transmuted into a kaleidoscope of shape, colour and form. Zimbabwean masters Arthur Azevedo, Thakor Patel and Tapfuma Gutsa show works bought for the permanent collection, in the prime of their careers.
Their pieces are experimental, for their time and are incredibly well resolved. They have stood the test of time and hold their own next to other contemporary artists.
Perhaps as I have often reiterated, we need to honour our own artists with befitting honoraria causa degrees and accolades as we are now found wanting in this cause on the continent.
Those who study modern-day African arts today often define its contemporaneity as being both discrepant from and having common characteristics with European models. On the whole modern African arts challenge easy classification; they solely do not remain stagnant, nor have they ever. Athwart their vast multiplicities, African aesthetics can only be cherished for its very multiplicity and organisms of representations that it sustains, contains, and transforms, over time.
While many art historians and students may be aware of the Western Art Masters it is important for there to be more documentation and education about our own African artists and those neighbouring African contemporary masters whom are more recognised in the US and some parts of Europe than on the mother continent.
The National Gallery must be commended for making this effort. Our renowned pan- African artists indeed deserve this intellectual and visual space.
Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD in Post-Modern Art Theory and a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) in Post-Colonial Art and Heritage Studies. He holds a Law and Art Diploma from Georgetown University, Washington, DC, and worked with WALA (Washington Area Lawyers Association). He also studied law and photography at the Corcoran School of Art, Washington, DC, USA. He is also a practising artist, art critic, author, designer and corporate image consultant.
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