Artists

After the WWII a surge of energy and talent emerged in the Johannesburg art community. At the centre of this new vitality that shifted local art production toward a more African sensibility was a group of predominantly new immigrants from Europe, including Italian-born Edoardo Villa who chose to make South Africa his home after he was released from the Sonderwater prison of war camp. As an art student in Italy Villa had been exposed to the great modernist artists of the time, and in South Africa he created a cross cultural synthesis deeply rooted in a particularly African convention, his experience of war and captivity, and the modern architecture and industrialisation of the city of Johannesburg and its surrounds.

He produced a prodigious body of extraordinary sculptures in bronze and cut steel over his long career, most notably his monumental public sculptures. Villa died in 2011 at the age of 95.

Image source: Gdekamper under CC0 1.0 UNIVERSAL