LOUIS KHEHLA MAQHUBELA

Curator Marilyn Martin looking for works by Maqhubela.

Curator Marilyn Martin is keen to access works by Louis Khehla Maqhubela in private collections, in addition to the many that have over the decades been acquired for public and corporate collections for an exhibition at the Standard Bank Gallery which will cover a period of 50 years of creative output from 1960 to 2010.

Louis Khehla Maqhubela was born in Durban in 1939, went to school in Johannesburg and studied at the Polly Street Art Centre under the direction of Cecil Skotnes. In 1966 he won first prize at the Adler Fielding Gallery’s annual Artists of Fame and Promise exhibition with a monumental conté drawing titled Peter’s Denial. This resulted in a trip abroad and a move away from painting and drawing township scenes.

In London, he met Douglas Portway (1922-1933), whose personal abstract language was to have a profound influence on Maqhubela. In the 1970s he went abroad again and settled in London in 1978.

The thrust behind the Standard Bank Gallery exhibition and its accompanying catalogue is to assess Louis Maqhubela’s contribution to South African art history and to remind South Africans, many of whom no longer know about him, of a great artist. One who had success early in his career (in spite of the hostile environment created by the apartheid government), whose work changed dramatically after he travelled abroad and who continues to live and work in London. In brief, the intention is to return Maqhubela from obscurity and to re-inscribe him into the history of art in South Africa.

Information submitted to the curator will be treated as confidential and used for research purposes only at this stage. Standard Bank Gallery will negotiate directly with owners regarding the loan of works for exhibition purposes and, if and when necessary, the use of images in the catalogue or for publicity or educational purposes.

Owners of works by Maqhubela are requested to send details and images, if possible, of works in their possession to mmartin@mweb.co.za