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Revisions - Expanding The Narrative Of South African Art: The Campbell Smith Collection - Hayden Proud

'Neglected South African artists' given a place in history

August 17, 2007. By Melvyn Minnaar found at CAPE TIMES Tonight

Publisher: SA History Online and Unisa Press

A serious indictment underpins this important, informative book about South African art.

For decades, even longer, work produced by the country's black artists didn't feature in the mainstream of the country's cultural experience.

Although it was an active and on-going production, such art-making remained virtually invisible to the (white) gallery going public. Only a small number of those artists managed to jump the apartheid barrier to a wider and international audience.

Revisions South African Art For setting the record straight, the title of this wide-reaching and handsome documentation of those "neglected" artists, comes across as an understatement. Revision of South Africa's art history is in the process of a major shift and the book is, in fact, a significant expansion of that narrative.

It is to this background that Bruce Campbell Smith features as a remarkable collector with suss. He is one of those rare people who have been able to see and appreciate beyond the obvious, the fashionable and the acceptable - and then turns out to have had an incredible vision.

For decades, purely for his own pleasure, he has acquired artworks from artists outside the accepted mainstream of apartheid South Africa. Now his remarkable collection is playing a vital role in redressing our art history.

At the end of 2005, Hayden Proud, curator of historical art collections at Iziko Museums, showed a large selection of Campbell Smith's collected art.

It was a milestone exhibition and signalled publically the convergence and integration of the marginalised with the established. The event also triggered increasing interest and attention. The book is the result of that show.

Revisions - Expanding The Narrative Of South African Art is edited by Proud with solid and insightful essays by the likes of Elza Miles, Joe Dolby, Ivor Powell, Gabi Ngcobo and Rayda Becker.

Each artist is represented with well-reproduced examples of work and a tight, critical biography. The information steeply raises the publication's bold, instructive value.

Proud also writes about the fact that it is Campbell Smith's private collection and not a public one, as one would expect, that is now demonstrating the corrected, wider range of the country's artistic production.

The sad reality is that such public collections, such as the Iziko SA National Gallery's, are strapped for money to acquire the art that has been ignored by earlier regimes.

South African art literature is notoriously limited and this book, which avoids over-dense and too academically inclined texts, is a welcome addition which will enlighten and please wider public appreciation for our country's great talent, past and future

artists’ work represented in the book:

Louis Maqhubela Dumile Feni Omar Badsha Julian Motau Ezrom

Legae Enoch Tshabalala George Msimang Amos Langdown Winston

Saoli Azaria Mbatha John Muafangejo Dan Rakgoathe Cyprian

Shilakoe Vuminkosi Zulu Eric Mbatha Judus Mahlangu Leonard

Matsoso ‘Nat’ Mokgosi Harry Moyaga Enos Makhubedu Sfi so

Ka-Mkame Paul Sibisi Zan Louw Gavin Jantjes Manfred Zylla

Billy Mandindi Alfred Thoba Willie Bester Derrick Nxumalo Nelson

Mukhuba Phutuma Seoka Jackson Hlungwani The Chauke Family

Johannes Segogela Philip Rikhotso Noria Mabasa Johannes

Maswanganyi Albert Munyai Thomas Kgope Tommy Motswai Trevor

Makhoba Joseph Manana Themba Siwela Zamani Romeo Makhanya