Omschrijving:
Unique elegant
bust of a South-African woman. Sculpted by the acclaimed autodidact
artist Rexon Mathebula a.k.a. Scotch (15 October 1926, Sophiatown,
Johannesburg) of mixed materials (marble, malachite...etc.). Date: c.1980s. Size: 3 2/5” width, 2 2/5” depth, 5 1/2” height.
Weight:1050Gram
The statue is signed on the backside: Rexon Mathebula.
Biography:
At an early age (7 years) Mathebula
went to live with his aunt who lived in the Letaba District, Tzaneen in
the Northern Transcaal (shortly known as Limpopo Province). He never
attended school and also had no art training and when he was fifteen he
started as a domestic worker until the age of twenty-four when he moved
to a farm in Hoedspruit. After that he was engaged as a driver in
Glencoe, Natal and worked for a short while in a coalmine. At the age of
thirty-one in 1957 he moved to Empangeni, Natal working consecutively on
a sugar estate and then as a domestic worker again.
The last formal job Mathebula held,
between 1963 and 1969, was as a railway-worker in Empangeni. In 1964, he
started drawing whenever he came across a tin of red paint and a bit of
tar, which he used to create figures on pieces of glass he found
occasionally. To make a living he sold his first artworks for 75c each.
He carried on working on glass selling his works regionally.
When he moved to KwaDlangenza (Zululand)
in 1973 he met Jo Thorpe, the founder of the African Art Centre in
Durban, who started to support him. Although Mathebula lacked any
schooling or formal art training he managed to support himself through
the sales of his artwork. At the same time his work was recognised by
Mrs BG. Ndawonde-Nene persuaded him to exhibit in the Students Union at
the University of Zululand. After this he held several exhibitions in
the Seventies and Eighties. In 1984 he won an award the UZ African Art
Festival. Nowadays his works are included in public and private
collections in South-Africa.
Mathebula’s work has been discussed in
detail in the book The Neglected Tradition by S. Sack (1988)
published by the Johannesburg Art Gallery.
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