Pack Easel

A small dry point etching titled, Pack Easel (1983) by the South African artist Sello Lucas Malemane (b.1949). The etching shows seven female figures in traditional Ndebele dress standing next to an art easel. On top of the easel is a load of maize in a sack. Brief biography: Sello Lucas Malemane was born in Nelspruit, today the capital of the Mpumalanga Province in 1949 in South Africa. After moving around extensively as a boy, his family settled in Pretoria North. Until 1980, at least, Malemane received no formal institutional training as an artist but worked as a messenger in the Library of the University of South Africa (UNISA) in Pretoria. He learnt art through reading books and met his fellow artists through reading the book, Contemporary African Art in South Africa (1971) by EJ de Jager and as a result Malemane began experimenting with woodcuts. In the late 1970s, he was moved to the Department of Fine Arts where he was further inspired by the Rorke’s Drift Art School in Natal considered one of the most prolific art schools for black artists during Apartheid. Malemane’s work is about the immortalisation of tribal traditions, something he realized would soon disappear in a modern society. This Malemane's etchings were donated to the University of Pretoria by Carla Wasserthal. The collection belonged to her husband, Klaus Wasserthal (1927-2012) who collected African arts during the many exhibitions he held at his candle-making gallery in Pretoria. Wasserthal was known for his significant role he played at the Rorke's Drift tapestry project which has since gained international recognition.