Forgotten Joburg artist comes alive

Revered landscape painter, Moses Tladi, stood as the first black painter to have a formal exhibition in South Africa and the first black artist to exhibit at the South African National Gallery.

It is in celebration of the renowned artist’s handiwork that the Wits Art Museum (Wam) in Braamfontein is currently hosting a seminal exhibition titled, Moses Tladi (1903–1959). Previously shown at Iziko South African National Gallery (Sang), Joburg art lovers will now have the opportunity to explore the life and work of one of South Africa’s great, but largely unknown landscape painters. Many of the works in the exhibition come from the Tladi family’s private collection.

Born in rural Sekhukhuneland (in the former Transvaal) at the turn of the 20th Century, Tladi was educated by German missionaries. His career as a painter began in the early 1920s when he moved to Joburg and worked as a gardener for Herbert Read, an English art historian and poet best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. The exhibition is accompanied by the book, The Artist in the Garden: The Quest for Moses Tladi, edited by the Read’s granddaughter, Angela Read Lloyd.

In 1928, Tladi was described by the then mayor of Joburg and influential collector and patron of art, Howard Pim, as a ‘native genius’. However, Tladi’s flourishing career was cut short by ill health and the occurrence of World War II. He died in 1959 at the age of 56 with his name subsequently fading into obscurity.

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“Tladi’s landscapes reflect social, economic and political contexts in which he lived and worked. Although appearing to be neutral, landscapes as a genre inevitably raise questions about power, ownership and belonging,” said Leigh Leyde, education curator at Wits University, speaking to City Buzz. “Tladi’s paintings present the countryside of his birth, his place of work, Johannesburg’s urban landscape, his deployment during the war to Kroonstad and his home in Kensington B.”

Leyde added that forced removal and land dispossession, as well as class, patronage and the establishment, had a profound impact on his artistic choices. “Tladi’s paintings told the stark truth about the atmosphere of the Transvaal in a poetic way. His title of being the first black painter to appear in the formal art world was as a result of the South Africanness infused in his painted subjects. This speaks volumes of the kinds of urban landscapes that existed in Johannesburg and in Tladi’s era.”

Details: Moses Tladi (1903–1959) is currently on show at the Wits Art Museum and will run until 16 July. Free access is available to the public from 10am to 4pm Wednesday to Sunday.

Edited Beryl Knipe