Helen Sebidi

Helen Sebidi
Born
Mmakgabo Mmapula Mmangankato Helen Sebidi

(1943-03-05) 5 March 1943 (age 81)
Marapyane (Skilpadfontein) near Hammanskraal, South Africa
OccupationArtist
Years active1960–present
Notable workTears of Africa (1988)
Awards

Mmakgabo Mmapula Mmangankato Helen Sebidi (born 5 March 1943) is a South African artist born in Marapyane (Skilpadfontein) near Hammanskraal, Pretoria, who lives and works in Johannesburg. Sebidi's work has been represented in private and public collections, including at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington and New York, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, New York, and the World Bank. Her work has been recognised internationally and locally.[1] In 1989, she won the Standard Bank Young Artist award, becoming the first black woman to win the award.[2][3] In 2004, President Thabo Mbeki awarded her the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver[4] – which is the highest honor given to those considered a "national treasure".[5] In 2011, she was awarded the Arts and Culture Trust (ACT) Lifetime Achievement Award for Visual Art,[6] while in 2015 she received the Mbokodo Award.[7][8] In September 2018, Sebidi was honoured with one of the first solo presentations at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town – a retrospective entitled Batlhaping Ba Re.[9]

Her work represents a mode of African modernist painting and sculpture, wherein she depicts her experience of having grown up and living in the South African countryside, and later her experiences as a black artist, living and working under an apartheid regime.[10] Sebidi's portraits often depict abstracted African subjects in bright colours and a rich palette. She is often associated with the realist and quasi-expressionist schools, with her vivid paintings of life in both rural and urban South Africa and similarly striking clay sculptures.[11]

  1. ^ de Kock, Yolanda (27 March 2019). "Helen Sebidi: #5WomenArtists Campaign". Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  2. ^ Festival, National Arts. "Full list of Standard Bank Young Artist Award winners". National Arts Festival. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
  3. ^ Sichel, Adrienne (1 January 1989). "The 1989 Grahamstown Festival". South African Theatre Journal. 3 (2): 116–120. doi:10.1080/10137548.1989.9687982. ISSN 1013-7548.
  4. ^ n.n. (19 October 2004). "Mapula Helen Sebidi (1943 - )". Archived from the original on 10 May 2019. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  5. ^ "Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi | Biography". www.everard-read-capetown.co.za. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
  6. ^ Staff writer, Arts and Culture Trust (11 May 2011). "Helen Sebidi wins ACT Lifetime Achievement Award". Archived from the original on 19 April 2019. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  7. ^ Staff writer, Mbokodo Awards (14 September 2015). "Women in Indigenous Art". Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  8. ^ Mafika (15 September 2015). "South African women in arts honoured". Brand South Africa. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
  9. ^ Malatjie, Portia (1 September 2018). "Batlhaping Ba Re!". Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  10. ^ Brown, Carol (1998). "The Zebra has lost its Stripes post-apartheid South African art". India International Centre Quarterly. 25 (1): 67–84. ISSN 0376-9771. JSTOR 23005605.
  11. ^ Leeb-du Toit, Juliette (2009). Mmakgabo Mmapula Mmankgato Helen Sebidi. Johannesburg: David Krut. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-9814188-7-2.