(Artist Fiona
Kirkwood with Jean Powell on her 90th birthday in February 2017)
(Pic courtesy
of Fiona Kirkwood)
Well-known Durban artist Jean Powell died peacefully on June 14, 2019,
at the age of 92. Her friend, artist Fiona Kirkwood shared the news of her
death, describing her as “an inspiration to me and to many others and my
longstanding friend.”
Exhibition curator, Carol Brown, described Powell as “a great champion
of the arts and contributed so much.”
Powell was an artist, art educator, designer of textiles, enamel, glass
and much more; exhibition organiser; promoter of highlighting Art Deco and Art
Deco architecture in Durban.
The following
article was published on artSMart on January 10, 2015, to publicise her
exhibition at the Durban Art Gallery that same month:
"Running in the Durban Art Gallery’s Circular Gallery until January 27 is
an exhibition of work by Durban artist Jean Powell showing selected examples of
her fabric works, traditional graphic works, botanic studies, calligraphy, and
her collaborations with architects in vitreous enamel and etched glass. The
exhibition is curated by Robert Brusse.
(Left: “A Vista Imagined
iPhoco – the Love Letter” - Mixed Media, was one of the works on the exhibition)
Jean Powell, now in her mid-80s, is an artist remembered as an active
committee member of the KwaZulu-Natal Society of Arts, the Friends of the
Durban Art Gallery and other bodies, but is less well known for her own
artistic production. She is probably best known for her enamel works, both
private and public. Several of the works that she has on exhibition have a
strong empathy towards women and their perceived problems in a male-dominated
world.
She has discovered, taught and helped countless young people to develop
skills and talents, but few people know the breadth of her work, nor her
journey through life.
Jean trained in Britain, working in Kenya before coming to South Africa.
She is one of the few art teachers alive who taught on Salisbury Island in
Durban. She went on to teach textile design at the University of Durban
Westville, before moving to the Natal Technical College. She was one of a group
of dedicated artists who developed the talents of various communities under
trying circumstances.
Powell was born in Kenya, on February 11, 1927. Her parents had
emigrated from the UK where her mother had studied, and graduated as a doctor
from the University of Edinburgh. Jean’s mother is famous for driving around on
a motor bike with a side car, almost always wearing a tartan skirt!
Immediately after matriculating, her mother decided that she should gain
further design experience and had her booked into the then Natal Technical
College in Durban. After 18 months, she moved to the UK and trained at the
Bartlett School of Architecture and later the Central School of Art and Craft
where she followed a design curriculum and was taught drawing by a young Lucian
Freud!
After her studies were completed, she worked in the fabric design studio
in London. From London she returned to Kenya where initially she worked in a
woman architect's office, before moving on to teach art at one of the more
prestigious schools in Nairobi.
In time, they decided to return to South Africa, where they settled in
Durban. Soon after the Powell family returned to South Africa, she got an
appointment to the Salisbury Island College, teaching students in the Fine Arts
Department. When, two or three years later the University of Durban Westville opened
- and Salisbury Island was closed - she started the Fabric Design course at
UDW.
“These were heady days in the creative world of Natal. The fine art
studios at Natal University, Durban Westville and the then Natal Technical
College had a galaxy of artist luminaries and this lead to a flourishing period
for the visual arts in all forms,” recalls curator Robert Brusse.
Powell worked with a number of architects - some for private homes, some
for public buildings. She did a large number of wall panels, starting off
reinterpreting industrial designs and later introducing botanic motifs. She is
arguably one of the few enamel artists who experimented with the incorporation
of fabric or who investigated the possibility of doing a series of three
enamels, as one would in a graphic work on paper."
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