Notes

An irrefutable figure in the story of art in Johannesburg, Sihlali is best known for his large output of watercolours made en plein air between the late 1960s and early 1980s. Sihlali used watercolour in a reportorial way associated with nineteenth-century artists like Thomas Baines and Constantin Guys, to describe – often in unsentimental terms – Black life in apartheid Johannesburg.¹ A prolific artist, Sihlali was also an accomplished printmaker. His earliest monotypes – unique prints made from painted images created on a non-absorbent surface like glass or copper – date as far back as the 1960s. Sihlali’s earliest monotypes depicted singular human subjects (an accordion player, a newspaper seller) and urban landscapes, notably Soweto where he lived.

As is evident in this expressive work, Sihlali did not limit himself to urban subjects. In the great tradition of pleinairism he roamed, portraying what intrigued him, including rural landscapes. Sihlali’s later use of colour in his monotypes introduced a sensitivity that evoked the chromatic elegance of his accomplished watercolours. The print medium enabled Sihlali in new ways, allowing him to experiment with line and washes of colour, in effect to invite abstraction into his work. Similar to a 1982 monotype showing sunrise at a rural compound, Sihlali’s focus in this undated landscape made in the Kruger National Park is the architecture of its bushveld, in particular its grasses, trees and termite mounds.

The Kruger National Park was not exempt from the laws of apartheid South Africa. Access to other race groups was long permitted, but complaints about racial mixing at campsites prompted the establishment of Balule on the south bank of the Olifants River in 1932 for use by Africans and Indians.² It is unknown when Sihlali visited the park and whether he stayed overnight. His print, with its assured sgraffito markings and washes of pastel colours, is nonetheless historically important. Building on work by writers Miriam Tlali and Njabulo Ndebele, historian Jacob Dlamini recently published on the existential state of Black tourism in South Africa, past and present.³ Sihlali’s work is an important visual contribution to this on-going research and recovery of a right to leisure in wild places.

^1. John Peffer (2009) Art and the End of Apartheid, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, page 198.
^2. Jacob Dlamini (2020) Safari Nation: A Social History of the Kruger National Park, Johannesburg, Jacana Media, ebook.
^3. Ibid.

This lot has been selected by Curatorial Voice: Nkgopoleng Moloi.