Artists

Joe Maseko was born in 1940 in Johannesburg and showed a talent for art while at school. He was a self-taught artist who is noted for his vibrant township scenes. Interestingly, they predate the development of the stylistic term ‘township art’. He began painting in 1959 and was a full-time artist by 1969. Maseko worked in a variety of mediums – from pastel to gouache to oil – and over the course of his career his style moved from realism to abstraction. His work forms part of the Palmama collection and has been on permanent loan to the University of Fort Hare in Alice, Eastern Cape since 1990.