Gerard Sekoto

(South African, 1913-1993)

The Artist's Brother

Footnotes

Provenance
Mrs Beryl Pinshaw;
By direct descent;
A private collection.

Exhibited
Johannesburg, Johannesburg Art Gallery, 'Gerard Sekoto', (October 1989-July 1990), no. 53.
Pretoria, Christi's Gallery, 'Sekoto: Solo Exhibition', (25 April-12 May 1947), no. 22.

Literature
Barbara Lindop, Gerard Sekoto, (Randburg: Dictum Publishing, 1988), pp. 134-135. (illustrated). (recorded as 'Bernard the Artist's brother').
Christi's, 1947, Cat No 22 (Broer van die kunstenaar)
Lesley Spiro, Gerard Sekoto: Unsevered Ties, (Johannesburg: Johannesburg Art Gallery, 1989), p. 81. (illustrated). (recorded as 'Bernard the Artist's brother').

Gerard Sekoto painted 'The Artist's Brother' in Eastwood, Pretoria, where he stayed between 1945 and 1947. As early as 1939, he had agreed with Ernest Mancoba that he would go to Paris, that both considered the capital of the art world, but Sekoto declared that he needed time to prepare for this enormous step. Leaving his semi-rural home near Pietersburg/Polokwane late in 1939, aged just 26, Sekoto had moved first to Sophiatown, outside Johannesburg, to immerse himself in a sophisticated Black urban environment, where he first learned to use oil paints, before moving to the impoverished but cosmopolitan District Six in Cape Town in 1942. In 1945, he came to Eastwood, a Black dormitory suburb of Pretoria before its destruction under Apartheid, to stay with the family of his mother and stepfather, his stepfather's son, his older brother, Bernard, and Bernard's new wife, Mary. In Eastwood, Sekoto continued to devote himself to his art. In 1947, he had exhibitions, first in April at Christi's Gallery Pretoria, where he sold 'The Artist's Brother' amongst other works, and then in July at the Gainsborough Gallery, Johannesburg. These exhibitions effectively funded his dream of going to Paris. In September 1947, Sekoto left for Europe and never returned to South Africa.

At Eastwood, Sekoto produced a prodigious amount of work, mostly scenes of urban African life but also the occasional landscape and still life (which, he said later, "took place in the infancy of my art world"). And he painted pictures of his family – his mother, alone or with her new husband; his sister-in-law, Mary; and several other pictures of Bernard: 'The Artist's Brother Asleep' (Lindop, p. 125), 'The Visitor, Eastwood' (Lindop, p. 161), and 'The Proud Father', showing Bernard with his older daughter Manakedi, or Anna, on his knee (Lindop, p. 143).

Little is known of Bernard Sekoto (1911-1981). As a youth, he was expelled from the Botshabelo Institute, seemingly because of a romantic attachment to a woman, a punishment considered so severe by his young brother Gerard that he left the school at the same time and moved to the Diocesan Training College. Bernard married Mary Dikeledi in 1945, an occasion which appears to have prompted Gerard's return to Gauteng. He had a second daughter Olga around 1950 and sent a photograph of his young family to Gerard in Paris. Nothing is known of his career, but Gerard commented later "My brother was not inclined to the world of arts – no dreamer nor composer, but he was on the side of the concrete world of his".

Is 'The Artist's Brother' a portrait? It was certainly never intended to remain with the sitter, a common attribute of a portrait, as the painting was sold to a stranger within a short time of its completion. Moreover, the absence of the sitter's name from the title suggests that Bernard's personal identity is not essential to the work. Instead, the title refers to the sitter's relationship to the artist. And there are signs that the artist has set himself specific challenges in this painting. Sekoto has clearly posed his brother with his right arm supported on the back of the chair and his legs turned sharply to the left, both of which movements introduce a pronounced twisting of his torso that Gerard has sought to capture. The painting obviously represents Bernard, but it also represents a self-imposed challenge by an artist still in the early years of his career. It is his application of such formal discoveries to an unprecedented urban African subject-matter that makes Sekoto's South African work so original and authentic.

The context of art is also indicated in the painting by the presence on the left side and in the background of two framed pictures, presumably by Sekoto himself. And Sekoto's sense of his position in this art world is suggested by two other features of the painting. Hanging behind Bernard is an African grass mat that is quite different from the other suburban furniture of the Eastwood home. Interestingly, Sekoto used this grass mat again around this time, albeit spread out on the floor, in his painting of 'A Young Man Reading' (Lindop, p.145). In both paintings, the mat forms the background against which the principal subject of the painting is shown reading, a book in one case, and in the present work a newspaper or, judging from its size, a supplement of an English-language newspaper. These details suggest a deliberate interplay between tradition and modernity or, given Sekoto's commitment to representing contemporary African urban life, his understanding that African modernity is firmly rooted in African culture.

We are grateful to Professor Michael Godby for his completion of the above footnote.

Bibliography
Barbara Lindop, Gerard Sekoto, (Randburg: Dictum Publishing, 1988).
Christi's, 1947, Cat No 22 (Broer van die kunstenaar).
Lesley Spiro, Sekoto: Unsevered Ties, (Johannesburg: Johannesburg Art Gallery, 1989).
N. Chabani Manganyi, Gerard Sekoto. 'I am an African', (Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Press, 2004).