Notes

In 1948 Lucas Sithole won a bursary to attend the Vlakfontein Technical College. Intending to study art he discovered there was no instructor. Instead he undertook carpentry, cabinet making, as well as welding and building which later proved invaluable to him as a sculptor. His innate creativity later led him to design and make his own special tools and chisels for creating special effects in his sculptures.

In 1955 he began to attend classes at the Polly Street Art School but only took up formal studies there between 1959 and 1960. Although his ultimate preference was to work in a rich variety of different woods that he sought in the wild, he also experimented with a wide range of other materials such as stone, liquid steel and bronze but said that “a tree is like a human being with veins. The branches represent the veins. Stone is just a material.”¹

The Wounded Leopard, shaped from the root of an ironwood tree and combined with liquid steel, pulses with the physical power of the animal is represents. The leopard "… whirling round in snarling fury”² is no less of a threat in its wounded state than if it were able bodied. Indeed the adage that one should avoid confronting a injured animal is captured masterfully in this work.

¹ Marilyn Martin, Lucas Sithole: Our Art 4, Foundation for Education, Science and Technology, Pretoria, 1993, page 179
² The Star, Johannesburg, 15th April, 1966

Provenance

Adler Fielding Galleries, Johannesburg

Exhibited

Adler Fielding Galleries, Johannesburg, 1966

Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg and Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria,  Sithole Retrospective Exhibition, 1979

Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, Images of Wood, 1989

Literature

Haenggi, F.F. (1979) Lucas Sithole 1958-1979 : a pictorial review of Africa's major Black sculptor, Johannesburg: Gallery 21. Illustrated on page 31.

Rankin, Elizabeth. (1989) Images of Wood: Aspects of the History of Sculpture in 20th-Century South Africa, Johannesburg: Johannesburg Art Gallery in association with the Hans Merensky Foundation. Illustrated on page , catalogue number 165.

van Robbroeck, Lize (ed.) (2011) Visual Century: South African Art in Context, Volume 2 1945-1976, Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Illustrated and mentioned on pages 154 and 155.

The Star Newspaper, Johannesburg, 15 April 1966

The Star Newspaper, Johannesburg, 20 August 1979

Transvaler, Johannesburg, 21 August 1979

Vaderland, Johannesburg, 23 August 1979