Musiek (Music)

Notes

George Milwa Mnyaluza Pemba is one of South Africa’s most notable black Modernist artists. Pemba’s work stands out for his narrative style, striking compositions and deliberate use of colour. The artist was a master at relaying an intimacy and candour in scenes that also spoke to the socio-political conditions of life in South Africa.

On spirited display in this lot are three young men playing music together. The piece is emblematic of Pemba’s use of gesture and action in his figurative works.¹ Sweeping brushstrokes further animate the movements of the swaying figures, while the urban horizon in the backdrop serves as a balancing anchor. Like the sweet sound of instruments playing in unison, there is a palpable sense of harmony that rings through the work, and the figures glow beneath Pemba’s familiar warm colour palette and sharp highlights. It was important to Pemba that his art documented the trauma inflicted duringapartheid and the struggle against the regime.² The present lot is a moving reflection by the artist of how that resistance was also held in moments of joy, when one could relish in the solace and connection that music offers.

^1. Jacqueline Nolte (1996) ‘Sources and Style in the Oil Paintings of George Milwa Mnyaluza Pemba’, in Hayden Proud and Barry Feinberg (eds), George Milwa Mnyaluza Pemba: Exhibition, Cape Town, South African National Gallery, 27.4.-28.7.1996, Cape Town: South African National Gallery, exhibition catalogue, page 39.

^2. Barry Feinberg, ‘Troubled Times,’ in George Pemba: Painter of the People, Johannesburg: Viva Books, page 41.