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Alfred Thoba: Black Modernist Maverick

17 Sep 2022

Mention Alfred Thoba’s name inside the mainstream art world – in all likelihood you’ll either receive a blank stare or a vague mention of the artist’s seminal 1976 Riots painting. The artwork set a world record for Thoba in 2012 when it sold for close to R1 million during a Strauss & Co auction.

Although Thoba doesn’t enjoy the same recognition as his contemporaries, art historians nevertheless regard him as an influential and often underrated South African artist.  “As an artist, Thoba is completely underappreciated,” says Leigh Leyde, art researcher and cataloguer at Strauss & Co. She was one of the co-curators of his retrospective “A Step Becomes a Statement”, which was held at the Wits Art Museum in 2018. “He is largely self-taught and bar a brief apprenticeship under artist Bill Ainsley, he never received any formal art training. Nor is he affiliated with any art collectives or institutions. He is a solitary artist and figure and always seemed to move outside the trajectory of the South African art history canon,”  explains Dr Rory Bester, art historian, curator and associate professor from the university of the Western Cape.

Under an oppressive regime

Thoba was born in 1951 in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, four years before the forced removals in 1955. Then prime minister D F Malan sent in two thousand armed policemen, who violently evicted the 60 000 Black residents from this black cultural hub.

Although the artist was only a toddler at the time of the evictions, the event must have had some influence on his subject matter, if only on a subconscious level.

His early works concerned themselves with the erotic and the human figure. As the cruel subjugation of the Apartheid government escalated in the mid-seventies, the content of his artwork changed, which indicates a political awakening, commenting on the plight and struggle of Black South Africans under an oppressive regime.

Speaking about his craft, he has a pragmatic view of his talent. “I went to them [Ainslie] with [my emphasis] the knowledge; I was actually born with it, (referring to his talent as an artist), ” he recalls. “Thoba’s painterly technique has little academic reference. Instead, it originates from the release he experiences through his unique process of applying paint to the canvas,” Dr Rory Bester, art historian, curator and associate professor from the university of the Western Cape explains. “Thoba’s painterly style is unique and arguably sculptural. The thickly applied paint is gathered into sharp peaks using a variety of tools rather than paintbrushes. Thoba uses his artworks to express his feelings on morality, politics, society and the everyday which makes the subject matter deeply personal and interesting” says Leigh Leyde, art researcher and cataloguer at Strauss & Co

“There are also no apparent art historical references in the artist’s work. During our interviews he never mentioned another artist of his own accord,” continued Bester.

Messages and money

For Thoba, painting was as much a commercial endeavour as an imaginative outlet – to keep on creating, he had to sell a painting, take that money and buy new supplies to produce the next.  “Oftentimes Thoba seems genuinely unconcerned with the artistic currency of his paintings or their place in an art historical tradition or canon.” Bester muses. 

For the artist the significance of a sale is as much about the successful transmission of a message, as it is about the financial gain, he adds.  “When you talk to Thoba about art, he talks about an almost feverish need to communicate his messages through his artwork,” says Leyde.  “Each painting also comes with a handwritten letter that explains the intent behind the work. For Thoba it’s incredibly important that his paintings and the story they contain are accurately interpreted. Social injustices like xenophobia and homophobia move him, and several of his artworks address these issues”.  

Seminal works up for sale

Bar Petrol Tank Explodes, Granny Lives (est. 35 000 – 50 000), all eight artworks of Thoba up for sale this week during Strauss & Co’s Cape Town auction week, were created after 1994. Post-apartheid, the artist remains committed to addressing political and social issues affecting Black South Africans. His artwork comments on Westernisation, urbanisation and the loss of cultural values and indigenous knowledge. Current events form a large part of his inspiration process – a newspaper article often sparks an idea or concept, which he clips out and stores for later use. 

The eight Thoba paintings form part of The Oliver Powell and Timely Investments Trust Collection. An established insolvency practitioner with a passion for the arts, Powell’s principal focus has been collecting South African paintings, sculptures and works on paper made since 1950. Colour, graphic ingenuity and emotional weight are all attributes in an artwork that Powell is drawn to, qualities that feature extensively in Thoba’s works.

“It is a rare opportunity to view such a brilliant collection of paintings by artist Alfred Thoba, on auction this Tuesday 20 September”, says Head of Department and Senior Specialist Kirsty Colledge.  “Thoba’s works have reached record prices in the past”, she says, referring to the  1976 Riots painting.

Horror and idyll

One of the auction highlights, They blaind a caple and kill them in same of dark erears papors of abnomalty of evil muthis, 2007 of his body protecting eyes and hands (sic). (est. 50 000 – 70 000),is a harrowing allegory of a couple being mutilated for muthi practices and witchcraft. In the artwork, a couple crouches before three sinister, faceless figures. Dark menacing hills and jagged peaks tower in the background, adding to the painting’s threatening atmosphere, while a cabinet of skeletons looms ominously behind the main instigator.

In contrast to the harrowing painting, Shepards are my Herrors (sic) (est. 80 000 – 120 00) explores the pastoral idyll of rural South Africa and the status of cow herders in traditional African culture. In this oil painting, a cow herder guards over a herd of cattle. Thoba’s attention to the cattle’s facial expressions gives the animals an almost anthropomorphic quality. Combined with sensual, rolling lines and the elevated, stately position of the cow herder, the artist offers the viewer a visual celebration of a proud African tradition.  The Oliver Powell and Timely Investments Trust Collection are presented in a standalone evening session on Tuesday, 20 September 2022 at 7 pm. Visit www.straussart.co.za to register and view the collection.