Footnotes

Provenance
Acquired by Aubrey and Maureen Bloch, Cape Town, mid 1950s;
A private collection.

Sekoto had graduated from his street scenes and subject matter that was centred around his life in Eastwood, and opted instead to convey the essence of the subject, rather than emphasising their physical environment, moving from scene painting rather to conceptual notions of expressing identity. The thematic use of the mother and child held a great presence in the work of the early 1950s. In Mother and Child (1951), we are presented with the skilful palette technicalities that have contributed to the significance of the artist. Inverting his paint application so that the figure is illuminated, Sekoto uses a blue application to the subject and tonal brown and golden hues to the background to display contrast and focus on the subject.

"The reason of my stylising at the time came out of fear of the jungles all round. Varieties of styles in the new place made me feel stubborn about not losing my personality. I therefore thought to take something apart, hence the rounds and ovals..." (Sekoto in Lindop, p. 187)

Mandebele Woman (featured in Barbara Lindop's book, p. 189) displays the underpinnings onto which the present work forms it's foundations, both in content and aesthetic. Sekoto presents us with a portrait of a woman wearing adornments traditional to the Mandebele culture. Similarly, the present figure is presented with the neck rings, arm and ankle bands also visible in this work. In a display of both cultural pride and celebration of the female form, Sekoto creates a glow of the subjects with his contrasting creams and yellow pigments in his palette, championing his subjects to a near metaphysical degree. By the 1960s and 70s tonal uses, bold, smooth, and exaggerated compositional forms were adopted as a regular preference of the artist.

"These were people with whom I used to live side by side in my youth. I wanted somehow to produce an African sculptural style as in the house there was an African Mask." (Sekoto in Lindop, p. 189)

Bibliography
Lindop, B., Gerard Sekoto, (Randburg, SA, 1988).