10 colour lithographs on 100% cotton paper BFK Rives

Aspire Collect Eligible: Yes
Artwork date: 2021
Signature details: each signed, dated, numbered 9/20, inscribed with the respective title in pencil in the margin and 2 works are embossed with the LL Editions chop mark bottom right
Edition: from an edition of 20 + 3AP + 3PP + 1 BAT + 2WP
Exhibited: Goodman Gallery, London, 'Sam Nhlengethwa: Jazz and Blues at Night', 12 August to 25 September 2021, an example from the edition exhibited.

(10)

sheet size: 12.5 x 12.5 cm each; portfolio: 31 x 31 cm

Provenance:

Private collection, Johannesburg.

Including:

Paul Desmond

Carmen McRae: signed, dated, numbered 9/20, inscribed with the respective title in pencil in the margin and stamped with the LL Editions chop mark bottom right

Louis Armstrong

Chet Barker

Mahalia Jackson

Ray Charles

Ella Fitzgerald

Mariam Makeba: signed, dated, numbered 9/20, inscribed with the respective title in pencil in the margin and stamped with the LL Editions chop mark bottom right

Sathima Benjamin

Dave Brubeck

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

The Jazz Legends formed part of Sam Nhlengethwa’s 2021 exhibition titled Jazz and Blues at Night. The presentation – the artist’s first solo debut in London – featured prints, tapestries and mixed media collage in Goodman Gallery’s showroom in Cork Street. The works were a celebration and tribute to all the jazz musicians that had influenced his artistic practice spanning five decades. That same year, Jazz and Blues at Night also travelled to Adler Beatty in New York, and showcased a selection of works to mark the artist’s first solo exhibition in ‘The Big Apple’.

The title of the work is significant, as the artist boasts a collection of more than 4000 vinyl records, and listens to the music whilst working – he thinks of this as a conversation between himself and the musicians of the past and present. Nhlengethwa often pays homage to jazz and blue artists that have perhaps been overlooked, such as BB King or Johnny Lee Hooker. The artist aptly states:

“I don’t think I could be who I am, what I’m doing in the art world, if there was no jazz.” [1]

^{[1] Goodman Gallery, Viewing Room: Sam Nhlengethwa Jazz and Blues at Night. Online: [https://goodman-viewingroom.exhibit-e.art/viewing-room/sam-nhlengethwa-jazz-and-blues-at-night#tab:thumbnails]}

COLLECTOR'S NOTE

• Sam Nhlengethwa is one of the founders of the respected Bag Factory artist studio space in Newtown, Johannesburg, where notable artists including David Koloane and Pat Mautloa had their studios.

• The artist received the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year award in 1994, the same year as South Africa’s first democratic elections.

• Nhlengethwa’s work was included in the reputable London-based Whitechapel Gallery’s Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa in 1995.

• In 2014, a major retrospective exhibition titled Life, Jazz and Lots of Other Things, was hosted by SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia which then travelled to the Carter Centre in Atlanta.

• In 2000, he participated in a group show at Seippel Art Gallery in Cologne. Other notable international group exhibitions include Beyond Borders: Global Africa at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (2018); Constructions: Contemporary Art from South Africa at Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói in Brazil (2011); POST – Contemporary South African photography at Tama Art University Museum in Tokyo, Japan (2004); amongst many others.

• Nhlengethwa’s work has featured on a number of international biennales: including the 8th Havana Biennale, Southern African Stories: A Print Collection in 2003, the 12th International Cairo Biennale in 2010, the 2013 Venice Biennale as part of the South African pavilion, titled Imaginary Fact: Contemporary South African Art and the Archive, and in the 6th Beijing Biennale in 2015.

• Nhlengethwa’s practice features in important arts publications, including The 20th Century Art Book (2001) and African Artists: From 1882 to Now (2021), both published by the prestigious Phaidon Press.

COLLECTIONS:

The artist is represented in numerous local and international collections, notably, the South African Reserve Bank, Johannesburg; Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg; Johannesburg Art Gallery; Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), Cape Town; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Durban Art Gallery; University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; MTN Art Collection, Johannesburg and the Sasol Art Collection, Johannesburg.