The Brenthurst Collection of Southern African Art
Reflecting on Aesthetics of African Artefacts
The Brenthurst Collection of Southern African Art was collected during the 1970s and 1980s by Jonathan Lowen, a South African-born lawyer living in London. The collection was later purchased by Harry Oppenheimer and repatriated to South Africa in the mid-1980s. It was loaned to the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), where it formed part of a major exhibition titled Art and Ambiguity in 1991.
The collection was housed at JAG for many years until it moved to The Brenthurst Library in April 2023.
Images reproduced with kind permission from the Johannesburg Art Gallery
Women
Resistance & Rights
Sue Williamson created A Few South Africans to celebrate the roles of women who participated in the long and protracted struggle against Apartheid. The sepia photographs were used to make photo-etchings which were combined with other techniques such as aquatint and hand drawing. The framing devices pay homage to a common domestic practice in South African townships whereby coloured paper and printed ephemera are repurposed to embellish family photographs.
To celebrate the adoption of the nation’s new Bill of Rights Coral Vinsen, Terry-Anne Stevenson and Jan Jordaan conceived the Images of Human Rights project. This was in collaboration with ‘Artists for Human Rights’, formed by Coral Vinsen & Lorna Ferguson in Durban in 1988 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The selected linocut prints on display relate to the everyday private and public lives of women, referring to issues such as family, safety, housing and education.
Past Exhibitions
AFRICAN BIRDS
THE 1922 RAND REBELLION
BOTANICAL ART
CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH
African hoofed animals
ZULU WARS
ELLAPHIE WARD-HILHORST
Botanical artist
THOMAS BOWLER
Artist at the Cape
THE FOUNDING OF JOHANNESBURG
CONSTANCE STUART LARRABEE
1914–2000
MAJOR A B CREE
British Regiments in South Africa 1795–1902
