Gerard Sekoto (South African, 1913-1993)Blue Head
signed and dated 'G. SEKOTO / 60' (lower right)
oil on canvas laid down on card
35.8 x 27.1cm (14 1/8 x 10 11/16in).注脚Provenance
A private collection, Cape Town.

Dated 1960, this head study is one of the earliest in a series of bust portraits that Sekoto executed over the course of a decade. The theme would continue to preoccupy him until the mid 1970s. This particular portrait is similar in composition to a ball-point drawing Sekoto made earlier in the year that he inscribed 'Inspiration - Mariam Makeba'. Sekoto left South Africa for Paris in 1947, forced into exile by the racism of the Apartheid regime. It is therefore no surprise that he identified with Makeba's music and her efforts to give disenfranchised black South Africans a voice.

Makeba was frequently referred to as 'Mama Afrika', and in these blue portraits we see Sekoto using her image to represent a proud and dignified black South African woman, confident of her grace and beauty. The artist described their symbolic power in a letter to Barbara Lindop in May 1986:

"Those heads do not easily express themselves to a foreigner or even amongst themselves - each one's a state to herself. Hence that twinkle of irony."

Bibliography
B. Lindop, Gerard Sekoto, (Randburg, 1988) p.214.