Gladys Mgudlandlu (South Africa 1925-1979)
Yellow Flowers

gouache on paper

Artwork date: 1963
Signature details: signed and dated bottom right
Exchange Rates*: USD 3 600 – 4 799
GBP 2 698 – 3 598
EURO 3 100 – 4 134

(1)

75 x 27 cm; framed size: 100.5 x 51.5 x 2.5 cm

Provenance:

Private collection of Dr Bruce Hoffman, Cape Town.

Bonhams, London, The South African Sale, 2 October 2013, Lot 93.

Private collection.

Acquired directly from the artist.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Nomfanekiso: “a picture of a person.” Gladys Nomfanekiso Mgudlandlu’s Xhosa birth name, in retrospect, seems to foreshadow a life destined for image-making. Born in 1917 in rural Peddie in the Eastern Cape, Mgudlandlu was raised by her grandmother. It was through this relationship and mentorship that her first artistic sensibilities were formed. Through her forebear, she was initiated into the traditions of Mfengu and Xhosa mural painting, absorbing not only a visual language but an approach to making, rooted in place and tradition. Her grandmother also imparted knowledge of the surrounding landscape, then part of the Ciskei, introducing her to the sourcing of natural clays in a range of raw, earthen hues, alongside materials and methods seldom encountered within Western-oriented art education.

By her own account, Mgudlandlu was a reserved and solitary child, later recalling to her biographer Elza Miles that birds were her closest companions. This intimacy with the natural world, perhaps first instilled by her grandmother, would come to define her work, earning her the affectionate title of ‘The Bird Lady’. Even where birds do not explicitly appear, her compositions often adopt a distanced, elevated perspective, or present scenes that carry a sense of watchfulness, as if quietly observing from above. That sensibility is evident here. A lone figure, seen from behind, carries a bundle of wood over her shoulder, set within a dense, softly shifting landscape. The forms are simplified, the space compressed, and the scene resists clear narrative, hovering instead between observation and recollection.

In 1944, Mgudlandlu moved to Cape Town, where she continued her practice with unwavering determination. Her landmark exhibition in 1961 made her the first Black woman to exhibit publicly in South Africa. The choice of venue itself speaks to the racial tensions of the time, with the exhibition permitted only within the relatively liberal space of the Liberal Party offices in Cape Town, yet still framed in a way that allowed a predominantly white audience to engage with it at a safe distance from the realities of apartheid. Within this context, Mgudlandlu’s rural Peddie landscapes could be readily absorbed as non-threatening and apolitical, their lyricism allowing them to pass largely beneath the radar of censorship and ideological scrutiny. While her work was generally well received, art critics dismissed its stylisation as naïve, while artist-peers questioned its lack of overt political engagement and its ‘palatable’ representation of life under oppression. Mgudlandlu resisted such expectations, describing herself simply as a “dreamer-imaginist”.

It is this independence, this commitment to an intuitive, inward vision, that gives her work its appeal, and we are pleased to present Girl Carrying Wood (Lot 14) and Yellow Flowers (Lot 16), two compelling examples by the artist in this sale.

COLLECTIONS:

The artist is represented in numerous local and international collections, notably the Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Javett Art Centre, Pretoria; Johannesburg Art Gallery; Durban Art Museum; Sanlam Collection, Bellville; University of Fort Hare, Alice; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Gqeberha; Mpumalanga Legislature, Nelspruit and the Standard Bank Corporate Collection, Johannesburg.