Framed Oil on Board signed Malcolm Smith - 50x17cm

Stillbaai Seascape with Cottages

The Artist

Malachi Smith

The beginning...

Malachi Smith (nom de guerre Zhara Yahkov), approaching the age of sixty, is considered as one of South Africa’s top ranking artists and one of the most versatile living artists in the world.

He was educated by the Irish monks at de La Salle College in the Cape port of East London. After leaving the Naval Academy in Simons Town in 1967, his first job was as a junior reporter, employed for a short while by Donald Woods, the famous editor of the Daily Dispatch. He has since been a dedicated artist and a career spanning nearly forty years has earned him a reputation of high international respect.

In 1986 Malachi Smith participated in an international exhibition held in the Super Dome of New Orleans USA. This was the introduction to his now famous ‘Miniature Signed Print Collection’.

An intensely private man, devoted to his wife and six children, Malachi published his second book in 2006.

The nom de Guerre of Zhara Yahkov, the works of which are regarded by some art collectors as a da Vince, van Gogh and Monet rolled into one, a 21st Century artist living in Africa, was conceived in 2001.