Pemba: Retrospective Exhibition

                                           George Milwa Mnyalaza Pemba: Retrospective Exhibition

South African National Gallery & The Mayibuye Centre, softcover, large format, illustrated, 108 pages, condition: new.

Pemba's first work was first exhibited at the Feather Market Hall in Port Elizabeth in 1928, when he was sixteen. In 1934, Pemba was treated for a burst appendix and he spent his hospital stay drawing pictures of nurses and doctors His hospital drawings caught the attention of landscape painter Ethel Smythe who took an interest in Pemba and offered him tutelage. Smythe possessed a large collection of books that introduced him to the work of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Diego Velázquez and impressionism. In 1937, Pemba received first prize in the May Esther Bedford Competition where the musician and artist Gerard Sekoto received second prize. His first commission came in 1950, in the form of a portrait of the educator and activist, Professor Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu for the University of Fort Hare.Pemba produced a satirical cartoon for the first edition of the African National Congress' newspaper Isizwe released in June 1959. Pemba, was also a writer, who wrote and staged at least two plays - The Story of Nongqawuse and The Xhosa Prophet Ntsikana. He later produced painting to illustrate the plays. South African heritage Project.