Tatham Art Gallery

Cyprian Shilakoe, who trained at Rorke's Drift, had just received high praise at the 1971 South African Graphic Art Exhibition that toured Belgium, Holland and West Germany, when he died in September 1972.

In a close working partnership with Dan Rakgoathe, Shilakoe produced wooden sculptures and etchings. He participated in numerous group exhibitions in SA and abroad. He is represented in public and private collections in this country and overseas.

'Cyprian Shilakoe Revisited' showcases a substantial body of the artist's life's work. The exhibition combines sculptures and prints on loan from both public and private collections in South Africa, together with eight early Shilakoe works, never before shown on public exhibition. Exhibition curator, Jill Addleson, together with Phillipa Hobbs (Curator of the MTN Art Collection), travelled to Dennilton to meet with the Shilakoe family. In the family home, they discovered two clay sculptures, two acrylic on masonite paintings completed when Shilakoe was training at Rorke's Drift (1868 - 1969), and three wood sculptures.

A comprehensive catalogue has been published, with essays by curator Jill Addleson, Linda Givon, Philippa Hobbs, Otto Lundbohm (Shilakoe's Swedish teacher at Rorke's Drift), Andries Walter Oliphant, Elizabeth Rankin and Yvonne Winters.

Selected quotes from the catalogue

Jill Addleson:

"...the greatest excitement about curating this exhibition was the discovery of unknown works by Cyprian Shilakoe which had been kept in the Shilakoe family home in Dennilton, Mpumalanga province, until we discovered them. In my opinion those works may be regarded as the most exciting find in the history of 20th century South African art."

Linda Givon (Goodman):

"He taught me that one needed to respect the world one lives in by treading very softly but each step should be taken with a purpose and that each purpose should lead to an ultimate conclusion."

Philippa Hobbs:

"Shilakoe's restraint from direct reference to the oppression of apartheid, and his embrace of wider human frailty, charges his prints with a relevance that reaches beyond the townships of the 1970s to reference universal human experience."

Otto Lundbohm:

"After thirty years I am still affected by the expressive and emotional narrative in the pictures he left behind him for us to contemplate and ponder over"

Shilakoe Opening Address

Tatham Art Gallery 19 July 2007

It is most unfortunate that I'm unable to be with you all tonight. It is an occasion that I had looked forward to very much as it would have given me the opportunity of seeing the exhibition again and also of sharing with you the excitement that this exhibition has generated.

Shilakoe's greatness as an artist is apparent in the works that are on display. It was a tragedy that he died so young: he was just 26 years old. But in those brief years he was extraordinarily prolific and he gained a national reputation as an outstanding artist; through exhibiting on graphic art exhibitions in 1971 in Europe, and in the following year - the year of his death - at the University of California, he was on the way to becoming known internationally.

Of all the exhibitions I have curated over the years, this was the one that gave me the greatest pleasure because it turned out to have most unexpected results. Indeed, when I look back on what works were discovered, you could say that this is the stuff of fiction, or that it happens to you once in a lifetime, if you are that lucky.

MTN, the major corporate sponsor of this exhibition, invited me to curate an exhibition of my choice. Why did I choose Cyprian Shilakoe? A major reason was that of the four great artists - Shilakoe himself, Azaria Mbatha, Dan Rakgoathe and John Muafangejo - all of whom trained together roughly at the same time in the 1960s at the ELC Art and Craft Centre at Rorke's Drift, the information on Shilakoe was scant compared with data about the three other artists. Another incentive for curating this exhibition was Shilakoe's stature as a print maker. In this regard I think he stands head and shoulders above almost all other South African artists of the time.

How does one go about curating an exhibition?

To assemble a representative and formidable body of work by a particular artist you need to contact the museums first so as to find out what collections they hold. Then you start searching for work in private collections. As Shilakoe exhibited quite frequently in Gauteng and KZN I decided to concentrate on these provinces. I wrote to all the editors of major newspapers to request members of the public to please contact me if they owned Shilakoe works. I heard nothing for a couple of months. So you can imagine my surprise when, out of the blue, I was contacted by Emily Mahlangu who claimed she was one of Cyprian Shilakoe's sisters, and that she had seen the publicity about him written by the Editor of the Daily Sun, a Gauteng newspaper. I was very suspicious at first, mostly because in all previous accounts of his life there had never been a single mention of siblings. I was eventually convinced when Emily told me that she had been named after Cyprian's beloved grandmother, Koko. You will see her name in a number of his etchings, cat. 47 being a very fine portrait of Koko.

Emily and I formed a very firm friendship over the phone. Through Emily I was able to re-write biographical information about Cyprian and his family. I found out that there were, in fact, 8 children altogether, Cyprian being the oldest. I was in regular contact with Emily over a number of months. But one day she dropped a bombshell on me when she said: 'You know, Jill, there are two sculptures and a drawing of Cyprian's in the Shilakoe family house in Dennilton'. Imagine my excitement. I immediately phoned up Philippa Hobbs, Curator of the MTN art collection, breathless at the news; and there and then we decided to drive together to Dennilton to meet Emily at the family home and to look at the works.

These are the works we discovered there:

• Two acrylic on board paintings, one of which has a painting on the verso
• Two clay sculptures
• 3 wooden sculptures

But we also discovered two more, unexpected, treasures: an etching plate almost certainly by Cyprian's great friend, Dan Rakgoathe; and the certificate Cyprian received when he completed the two year art course at Rorke's Drift.

As Philippa and I were documenting this amazing find in the Shilakoe family home, an inquisitive neighbour popped in to check up on what we were doing. That galvanized us into action, and without further ado we packed up all the works to take to Johannesburg for safe keeping until they could be sent to the DAG to be prepared for exhibition. We certainly weren't taking any risks leaving such a valuable cache of art works unguarded!

All the works had been left in the Dennilton home for a long period of time, in an unstable environment, and deterioration had set in. Consequently, nearly all of them had to be restored so that they could be displayed on this exhibition in good condition.

I asked the family whether they would like to sell all these works and when they all said yes, I called in Gillian Scott-Berning of Christies to handle the sale. One art collector who chooses to remain anonymous purchased the entire collection and immediately donated them to the DAG in what might very well prove to be perpetuity - a very generous and handsome gesture. The family benefited financially from the sale of these works and the entire nation has gained part of the wonderful heritage left to us by the artist.

Emily provided so much information about her brother, Cyprian, that we are now able to put together a very lively account of his life: his love of his grandmother, Koko, over and above that for his mother; where they lived; Cyprian's dedication to becoming an artist; his close ties with his family; his love of Catherine Tlhale, his fiancée; and his great respect for his ancestors depicted in many of his works.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of all was that he actually visualized his own death, but assured his sister, Emily, that he wasn't upset about this as he was '... going to leave this world, but I will be back ... in a way you don't understand'. What makes the account even more graphic is that other people who were close to him also experienced premonitions of his death. They included Dan Rakgoathe, his great friend, Otto Lundbohm his teacher, the artist, Louis Maquubela, and his sister, Emily.

There is no doubt that his very early death robbed our country of one of its most original and powerful artists.

Cyprian Shilakoe was born on 3 August 1946 and he died on 7 September 1972 in a horrific road accident.

Thank you

Jill Addleson
July 2007

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