Esther Mahlangu's Enduring Legacy in Education
Exploring how in both her life and work, Esther Mahlangu uses her platform for social change, education and empowerment
By Art of Contemporary Africa
Content curated from the "Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting": Esther Mahlangu, A Retrospective exhibition research process
Mahlangu walking into Courtyard installation at Iziko National Gallery installation (2023)Art of Contemporary Africa
Taking umgwalo to the world
Throughout her career, Mahlangu has travelled the world whilst passing on her skills to the next generation and celebrating umgwalo with an international audience.
“My future is that I want children to learn the cultures, I don’t want any culture to die so that’s why I’m teaching and want other people to teach their children as well so that no future, no culture must come to an end.”
- Mahlangu in 2014 interview with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts [translated by Grace Masango]
Teaching workshopsArt of Contemporary Africa
Mahlangu's school: part one
After Mahlangu's first son Petrus Mahlangu passed, she converted his house into a school for teaching umgwalo. Beyond her own and her family's living expenses, she used the money from commissions to build this space and maintain it for future generations.
“Ndebele art was dying. […] Our people were doing their own things in the urban areas. Luckily, now people are going back to their culture, even if some of them are modern now.”
-Mahlangu in DAC book Esther Mahlangu: Indigenous Lines (2019: 45)
Teaching workshopsArt of Contemporary Africa
Mahlangu's school: part two
In later years, she established another base for schooling by isihodlo (the courtyard) of her umuzi (housing complex), where she continues to teach children the skills of Ndebele traditional painting to this day without having to travel as far.
"In my heart I thought I must ask the women to allow their children to come to me in the afternoons after school so that I can teach them. The women agreed to it. Now I teach the children. You see I thought that if I teach them maybe one of the children will take to it and then pass on her skills to all those children who are yet to be born"
-Mahlangu in 2005 interview with BMW
Teaching workshopsArt of Contemporary Africa
How she teaches the traditional methods
Her students use the chicken feather brushes and start by mixing a dung and clay mixture. Pragmatically, she claims, “it’s easier to clean up the mud and start again[...] When I approve the work as stunning, the student is finished.”
Esther Mahlangu: Indigenous Lines (2019)
"Way back I was the one who started the Ndebele School for Children. I can’t even recall how long ago it was but I know that some of my first students now have children who paint here with me."
- Mahlangu in conversation with Loots, 2003
Teaching workshopsArt of Contemporary Africa
Visits to other schools for workshops
We also see evidence in Mahlangu's archives of existing schools in South Africa that her and her son, Elias Mahlangu, visited to teach children all about umgwalo and its techniques.
She also visited the Ndebele College of Education and painted two umgwalo there with one of her students.
" I want to teach the next generation about our culture so that they are able to preserve it for the future. So that the next generation knows where they are coming from and where they are going. "
-.Mahlangu in 2016 for The Creators Project [translated to English by the Creators]
The reach of Mahlangu's art is more than just in a localized context and we see how she conducted these workshops and encouraged student engagement at every opportunity, consistently through her career. Pictured above are school groups she engaged with in Washington D.C., USA. On the left, a group who came to visit her first solo exhibition in 1994 and on the right a school tour of her 1996 solo exhibition of oil paintings.
Mahlangu, and her team, teaching workshops conducted in New York (USA) where Mahlangu received the Incorporated Village of Hempstead Citation in 1997.
"I don’t want my culture to die, I want it to live. That’s why I teach the children to paint and to do beadwork. Because I don’t want the Ndebele culture to simply fade away. I see that they love to paint and I’m happy about that because I know that it won’t die out. My culture will survive [...]"
- Mahlangu in a BMW interview conducted on 26 March 2005 [Transcribed and translated to English from Afrikaans]
Workshops and artist talks conducted at the Kunstmuseum Bochum (Germany) where Mahlangu painted an umgwalo for New Identities: Contemporary Art from South Africa.
Sign for Esther Mahlangu's Centre at BotshabeloArt of Contemporary Africa
2025
Mahlangu's legacy continues to be passed down to her granddaughters and other students, within the local Ndebele community in Mpumalanga and internationally.
“ I want to be remembered for my work, for my paintings. And for the many places my art has taken me. Ndebele art has shown me the world and people overseas love it ”
- Mahlangu in a 2018 interview with News24
The images in this story were graciously offered by Esther Mahlangu's Family Archives during the course of research. These images were then made accessible to public in the exhibition timeline of "Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting": Esther Mahlangu, A Retrospective (2024-2025) and related projects.
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