Notes

Each cast by the Vignali Foundry, Pretoria.

Number 3 from the edition of African Goat is in the Iziko South African National Gallery Collection, Cape Town.

Thanks to Dr Gavin Watkins for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.

‘Legae’s late goat sculptures have a faint science fictional quality about them. Their elegant, simplified and flattened forms are produced by the delicate antennae-like quality of their horns and the fragile phallic protuberances. The works have a humour and lightness of touch that sets them quite apart from the severity of his earlier work, and perhaps suggest something of a recovery of a less grim view of the world. Years previously he had spoken about his loving affection for goats in a conversation recorded by Lola Watter: ‘The goat fascinated me. Man, it was so comical and contrary that I felt its actions had to be deliberate. I even identified with it … I think goats are very funny and humour is something I like to put into my work. I like to draw them as stupid and wise and, well … quaint.’¹ There is tenderness in his observation of the animal, a quiet respect which suggests perhaps that – even if it were just for a while – Legae had regained a kind of peace with the world about him.’²

1. Dina Katz (1974) ‘Ezrom Legae: A man of two worlds’, in Lantern, September, page 59.
2. Karel Nel and Elizabeth Burroughs (2018) ‘Ezrom Legae: Political Edge’, in Elizabeth Burroughs and Karel Nel, Re/discovery and Memory: The Works of Kumalo, Legae, Nitegeka and Villa, Cape Town: Norval Foundation, pages 191 and 192.

 

Literature

James Webb and Josh Ginsburg (2016) Off the Wall: An 80^th Birthday Celebration with Linda Givon, Johannesburg: Wits Art Museum, exhibition catalogue. Another cast from the edition of African Goat  illustrated on page 18.

Elizabeth Burroughs and Karel Nel (2018) Re/discovery and Memory: The Works of Kumalo. Legae, Nitegeka and Villa, Cape Town: Norval Foundation. Another cast from the edition of African Goat  illustrated on page 192 as fig. 38.