School Art

No description of the contemporary African art collection would be complete without a reference to some hundred-odd works dating from the mid 1950s until the mid 1990s, done by Zulu school-children in KwaZulu-Natal schools.

These paintings and sculptures are a delight to the viewer. Children from rural schools tend to carve traditional spoons, sticks and creatures like baboons, snakes and lizards while their paintings depict traditional Zulu homesteads, tribal dances, crop-planting and cattle herding.

In contrast children from township schools tend to make intricate wire-work aeroplanes, cars and buses and their paintings depict scenes of suburbia, like shopping complexes, soccer-players, beauty queens and weddings. However, not all the works are happy: the experiences of children traumatised during the political unrest of the 1980s and 1990s found expression in works depicting marches, petrol bombing, police and army helicopters and Saracens.¹

Endnote

1. MM2312