Notes

This allegorical painting by George Pemba was painted a decade after the death in detention of Black Consciousness leader, Stephen Bantu Biko, on 12 September 1977. According to Pemba, he had thought about painting this work for many years as he had been deeply affected by the death of Biko.¹ While he felt that Biko had died in more gruesome and sinister circumstances, he was reminded of a scene he had witnessed outside his home in the 1930s when he saw a mounted BSAP policeman orchestrating the arrest of a ‘criminal’. The sense of injustice he felt then manifested itself in this depiction of oppression. When the biography of his life, Against All Odds, was being compiled by Sarah Hudleston, Pemba, who was in his late 70s, told the author that he called the painting Arrest, Police and Slaves. Hudleston later discovered that the painting had been exhibited with the title, The Arrest of Steve Biko. Providing a good likeness of Biko’s face, the painting conveys Pemba’s sense of outrage at the brutal death of a great leader.

1. Disclosed in conversation with Sarah Hudleston, 1993.

Literature

Hudleston, Sarah. (1996) Against All Odds, Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers. Illustrated in colour on the half title page and on page 141: Painted in 1987, Pemba painted this scene from memory of an incident outside his house in New Brighton in the 1930’s. Interestingly enough, the police uniforms of the old British South African Police are fairly accurate.