Works of Rorke’s Drift artists see light of day
Exhibition provides rare chance to see collection, writes Robyn Sassen
IT reads like a fairytale: once upon a time in the 1960s, a famous battle site was reinvented — more than a generation after the bloodshed — by ardent Christians as an art and craft centre for black men and women who could not study art anywhere else in South Africa because of apartheid.
And it works: it turns the lives of black artists around, making giants of them in contemporary art in South Africa.
And then it does not: internecine fighting about succession and marketing causes the establishment to crumble and, eventually, close its doors 20 years later.
Tragically, no one ever took the time to construct a real Rorke’s Drift archive.
Given this context, the major exhibition that opens today celebrates what is tantamount to a movement in contemporary South African art.
More than 100 works by 17 artists, mostly hand-pulled prints such as woodcuts and etchings, are on show.
“When I was approached to curate this exhibition late in 2012 by Craig Mark, its project manager, I was not sure I wanted to do this,” said the show’s curator, Thembinkosi Goniwe, associate professor in fine art at the Vaal University of Technology. Having trained as a printmaker at the University of Cape Town, Goniwe was familiar with work from Rorke’s Drift.
Ten years ago, the book Twenty Years of Printmaking in South Africa: Rorke’s Drift: Empowering Prints by Philippa Hobbs and Elizabeth Rankin was published. It was the first major research conducted on the artists and art of Rorke’s Drift.
“For its aims and time frame, it was comprehensive. In any research there is always guesswork around facts that could not be reached,” said Goniwe, referring to the biographies of each artist. “They’re not given their own voice.”
This exhibition is not comprehensive either. It is a family collection — the Rorke’s Drift purchases of the Jumuna family in Durban — that traces back to the 1960s.
And here lay part of the project’s challenge, said Goniwe. “The family is in Durban and the work came through in dribs and drabs from as far afield as the US and London. And when you are working with artworks, pictures are just not enough,” he said, explaining that the works on show were not the “popular Rorke’s Drift works”.
“The works were bought out of sympathy and a genuine desire to support the artists. They were not properly cared for. The family knows nothing about art, so many of the prints were damaged. As a result, information about the works has become difficult to retrieve.”
Goniwe hosted a preliminary showing of the collection in Durban and invited former Rorke’s Drift artist Paul Sibisi to open it.
“Immediately, his eye was caught by one of the untitled pieces. ‘That’s mine,’ he declared. Sibisiwas very helpful in identifying many of the works.”
Other artists associated with Rorke’s Drift include Sam Nhlengethwa, Sandile Zulu, Vincent Baloyi, Kay Hassan and Bongi Dhlomo-Mautloa, who will open the exhibition today.
The original Evangelical Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre was established by Swedish missionaries Peder and Ulla Gowenius in 1962. It opened a door to many talented artists who would otherwise have been denied the opportunity to further their craft.
Initially the centre concentrated on weaving and pottery, but developed into a printmaking studio that attracted artists nationally and internationally. Hand-pulled prints meant the art reached a wider audience because the process was affordable and the works could travel.