South African National Gallery

Profil

South Africa's premier art museum houses outstanding collections of South African, African, British, French, Dutch and Flemish art.

Selections from the Permanent Collection change regularly to enable the museum to have a full programme of temporary exhibitions of paintings, works on paper, photography, sculpture, beadwork, textiles and architecture.

They provide insight into the extraordinary range of aesthetic production in this country, the African continent and further afield.

This programme is complemented by a range of temporary visiting exhibitions.

Contemporary Collection

Unlike Iziko's collections of Historical or Modern art, the ambit of the collection of Contemporary Paintings and Sculpture shifts with time, as works once considered "contemporary" recede further from the present and are incorporated into "history". Currently, the Collection of Contemporary Paintings and Sculpture extends temporally from approximately the 1960s-1970s to the present day, and consists predominantly of works by South African artists. This is one of the most actively acquiring collections, and while the Art Collections acquisition policy considers the redress of historical omissions as vital to the collection, it is also forward-looking with regard to the output of emerging and established artists in South Africa.

Some noteworthy recent acquisitions include Mary Sibande's 2010 large-scale sculpture titled The Reign, Noria Mabasa's 2008 wooden sculpture Ndi Mukegulu a ne a khou thsimbila na vhaduhulu vhaue vhavhili / Grandmother and her two Children, and a crocheted lace portrait by Pierre Fouché titled The Kiss (2008).

While the contemporary collection is continuously growing, it also has houses works which for some years have been favourites with our visitors. These include Jane Alexander 's well-known sculpture The Butcher Boys (1985/6), William Kentridge 's series of five Soho Eckstein short animated films (1989-1996), and one of Jackson Hlungwani's variations of Christ Playing Football, a large wooden sculpture smaller variations of which are included in other major collections in South Africa.

Other important artists represented in this collection are David Koloane, Penny Siopis , Kendell Geers , Lucky Sibiya, Sfiso Ka Mkame, Willem Boshoff , Willie Bester , Nandipha Mntambo , Nicholas Hlobo , Marlene Dumas, Johannes Phokela and Sue Williamson .