Dumile (Zwelidumile Mxgazi) Feni-Mhlaba (South African 1942-1991)
Painting size is 760 x 550
Pen & Ink on paper - Signed and dated '85
Pain Suffering Mother and Child Exile
Please note all prices are estimates as to what the art is currently selling at gallery's and we urge clients to please do
research themself's.
Dumile Feni
Zwelidumile Jeremiah Mgxaji is better known as Dumile Feni. As a child Dumile developed an interest in carving and drawing and in the early 1960s he was apprenticed briefly to the Block & Leo Wald Sculpture, Pottery and Plastics Foundry in Jeppe, Johannesburg. He received no formal art Training but while being treated at the Charles Hurwitz South African National Tuberculosis Hospital (SANTA) in Johannesburg in 1963 and 1964, his obvious artistic talent was encouraged by the artist Ephraim Mojalefa Ngatane (qv.), who was only slightly his senior but had already exhibited successfully at the Adler Fielding Gallery in Johannesburg. The two painted murals at the hospital and Dumile decided that art was his vocation. After his discharge, Dumile received informal training from Ngatane who suggested that he go to the Jubilee Art Centre where he met Cecil Skotnes (qv.). He also received help and advice from Mrs Haenggi of Gallery 101 in Johannesburg and the artist, Bill Ainslie.
Dumile exhibited successfully for a number of years in Johannesburg and was selected as one of the artists to represent South Africa at the 1967 Sao Paulo Biennale. However, he was severely criticised by his fellow artists in Durban, where he was living at the time, for being prepared to represent the apartheid regime on an international exhibition. On his return to Johannesburg and faced with the prospect of being deported to either Queenstown or Worcester under the notorious Pass Laws, Dumile decided to go into voluntary exile in London, arriving there at the beginning of 1968.
In London Dumile again enjoyed success and recognition, showing his work among other exhibitions, at the Grosvenor Gallery and Camden Art Centre. In 1979 he decided to go to the United States, first to Los Angeles and then New York, where he spent the last decade of his life. Although Dumile did exhibit in New York, his income derived mainly from designing record covers, posters, calendars and illustrations in books. In 1991, shortly before his planned return to South Africa, he died from heart failure while shopping at his favourite music store, Tower Records in New York. His body was returned to South Africa and he is buried in Johannesburg.
Described while in Johannesburg as the ‘Goya of the townships’, Dumile found his subject matter in the life and events he observed around him, but he had the ability and vision to transform the particular into the universal. His works reflect his deep love of music, particularly jazz. In many of his drawings, even the disposition of the figures on the page is invested with a musical rhythm. Dumile was primarily a graphic artist, working almost entirely in monochrome. He was also an exceptionally gifted sculptor and many of his drawings, executed entirely in a linear fashion, have a profound sculptural quality. The Study for the portrait of Albert Luthuli (plate 138) is an excellent example of Dumile thinking and expressing himself as a sculptor through drawing. The drawing does not attempt to depict the final three-dimensional sculpture; instead, the drawing itself has an intrinsic, sculptural quality. It was while he was in London that he started work on a sculpture of Albert Luthuli and eventually completed at least two bronzes of this African icon. Albert Luthuli (1898–1967) was a Zulu chief, teacher and religious leader; he became president of the African National Congress from 1952 to 1967, and was the first African winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in waging a non-violent campaign against racial discrimination in South Africa.
Shipping cost is R150.00
