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South African artists

225 artists

South Africa has one of the richest art histories on the continent and one of its strongest contemporary scenes. Its oldest art is the rock painting of the San and their ancestors; the gold of Mapungubwe and the painted houses and beadwork of the Ndebele, carried to the world by Esther Mahlangu, belong to the same long story. In the twentieth century, painters such as Irma Stern, J. H. Pierneef, Gerard Sekoto, George Pemba and Ernest Mancoba made South African modernism, while art centres such as Polly Street and Rorke's Drift trained Black artists excluded from the art schools.

Under apartheid, artists such as Dumile Feni and the country's great photojournalists recorded what the system did to people. Since 1994 South African art has been shown everywhere: William Kentridge's animated charcoal drawings, Marlene Dumas's paintings, Zanele Muholi's photographs, Jane Alexander's and Mary Sibande's sculpture. This list brings together the country's artists with Wikipedia articles, most looked-up first. See also Southern Africa and South African photographers.

Profiles

Photojournalist

Kevin Carter

South Africa · 1960–1994

Kevin Carter covered South Africa's township wars and, in Sudan in 1993, made the Pulitzer-winning vulture photograph. His life, work and the debate it started.

Artist

William Kentridge

South Africa · 1955–

William Kentridge makes films from charcoal drawings he draws, erases and redraws, the Drawings for Projection, and operas and sculpture about South Africa.

Photojournalist

Ken Oosterbroek

South Africa · 1963–1994

Ken Oosterbroek (1962–1994), chief photographer of The Star and a Bang-Bang Club member, was killed in Thokoza days before the 1994 election.

Writer and painter

Breyten Breytenbach

South Africa · 1939–2024

Breyten Breytenbach, the great Afrikaans poet who opposed apartheid, was jailed for seven years and painted throughout his life. He died in Paris in 2024.

Visual activist

Zanele Muholi

South Africa · 1972–

Zanele Muholi, the South African photographer and visual activist, documents Black LGBTQIA+ lives in Faces and Phases and turns the camera on themself.

Painter and DJ

Leon Botha

South Africa · 1985–2011

Leon Botha, a Cape Town painter and hip-hop DJ with progeria, appeared in Die Antwoord's Enter the Ninja and made art about his condition. He died at 26.

Painter

Marlene Dumas

South Africa · 1953–

Marlene Dumas, born in Cape Town and in Amsterdam since 1976, paints faces and bodies from photographs in loose, wet washes. A leading painter of our time.

Painter

Esther Mahlangu

South Africa · 1935–

Esther Mahlangu took Ndebele wall painting from her village to Paris, a BMW Art Car and the world's museums. Her life, her technique and her legacy.

Photojournalist

Greg Marinovich

South Africa · 1962–

Greg Marinovich won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography, co-wrote The Bang-Bang Club and later investigated the 2012 Marikana massacre.

Photographer

Ernest Cole

South Africa · 1940–1990

Ernest Cole photographed daily life under apartheid and published House of Bondage (1967) in exile. His lost negatives were found in a Swedish bank in 2017.

Photojournalist

João Silva

South Africa · 1966–

João Silva, the Bang-Bang Club photographer, covered wars for The New York Times and returned to work after losing both legs in Afghanistan in 2010.

Painter

Vladimir Tretchikoff

South Africa · 1913–2006

Vladimir Tretchikoff, the Russian-born painter in Cape Town from 1946, made Chinese Girl, the "Green Lady", one of the 20th century's most reproduced pictures.

Photographer

Roger Ballen

South Africa · 1950–

Roger Ballen, a New York-born photographer in Johannesburg since 1982, moved from portraits of rural South Africa to staged, unsettling black-and-white scenes.

Wildlife photographer

Austin Stevens

South Africa · 1950–

Austin Stevens, the South African-born herpetologist and wildlife photographer, hosted Snakemaster and once lived 107 days in a cage with 36 venomous snakes.

Painter

Irma Stern

South Africa · 1894–1966

Irma Stern brought German Expressionism to South Africa in the 1920s; derided, then celebrated, her portraits now sell for millions. Her home is a museum.

Photojournalist

Sam Nzima

South Africa · 1934–2018

Sam Nzima photographed the dying Hector Pieterson in the 1976 Soweto uprising, one of apartheid's defining images, and paid for it with harassment and hiding.

Photographer

David Goldblatt

South Africa · 1930–2018

David Goldblatt (1930–2018) photographed South Africa's mines, suburbs, commuters and buildings for six decades and founded the Market Photo Workshop.

Painter and sculptor

Dumile Feni

South Africa · 1942–1991

Dumile Feni, the "Goya of the townships", drew apartheid's suffering in powerful, distorted figures, above all African Guernica (1967), before exile in 1968.

Sculptor

Coert Steynberg

South Africa · 1905–1982

Coert Steynberg made the Paul Kruger statue at the Kruger Gate, the Bartolomeu Dias at South Africa House and the Krugerrand springbok: Afrikaner monuments.

Painter

J. H. Pierneef

South Africa · 1886–1957

J. H. Pierneef painted the highveld in ordered, geometric landscapes, above all the 32 Johannesburg Station Panels (1929–32), now read in political context.

Photojournalist

Anton Hammerl

South Africa · 1969–2011

Anton Hammerl, a South African-Austrian photojournalist, was killed by Libyan government forces near Brega in April 2011; his death was hidden for six weeks.

Photographer and painter

Zwelethu Mthethwa

South Africa · 1960–

Zwelethu Mthethwa won acclaim for colour portraits of South Africans at home. In 2017 he was convicted of murdering Nokuphila Kumalo and jailed for 18 years.

Photojournalist

Peter Magubane

South Africa · 1932–2024

Peter Magubane photographed Sharpeville, the 1976 Soweto uprising and Mandela's road to the presidency, and spent 586 days in solitary confinement.

More artists

Most looked-up first. Names link to our profile, or to Wikipedia where we do not have one yet. Short descriptions from Wikidata; portraits from Wikimedia Commons. Image credits