bronze on a wooden base

Artwork date: 1965
Signature details: signed on the back
Edition: unnumbered
Exhibited: Grosvenor Gallery, London, Sydney Kumalo, Cecil Skotnes, 12 July to 6 August 1966.; Grosevenor Gallery, London, Art from South Africa: Adams, Burwitz, Dumile, Kumalo, Lipschitz, Skotnes, Stern, Villa, 15 February to 10 March 1995.
Literature: Burroughs, E and Nel. K. (2018). Re/discovery and Memory. Cape Town: Norval Foundation. Another example from the edition illustrated in colour on p.72.

(1)

57 x 39 x 20 cm including base

Provenance:

Private collection, Johannesburg.

Notes:

Accompanied by a signed certificate of authenticity from Grosvenor Gallery, London.

“Fiorini & Carney, a London based bronze foundry, cast Kumalo bronzes for Grosvenor Gallery in 1965 and 1966. Eric Estorick, the then owner of the Grosvenor Gallery, was introduced to Egon Guenther in 1964 by Linda Goodman, née Givon, (who had worked previously for the Grosvenor Gallery). In May 1966, Estorick purchased 14 Kumalo sculptures from Guenther – each sculpture was a numbered bronze, cast in South Africa by Vignali Foundry, from an edition of 10. In this specific case, Estorick bought edition number 10/10 of Kumalo’s Large Seated Woman from Guenther. Estorick cast a further 4 unnumbered bronze casts of Large Seated Woman through Fiorini & Carney using the bronze edition number 10/10 that he had purchased as the source/mould for the further 4 casts. The sculpture of Large Seated Woman is one of these unnumbered casts.”#

Gavin Watkins

This striking bronze sculpture was created in 1965, an important time in Sydney Kumalo’s artistic biography. A year earlier, Kumalo left his post as a teacher at Jubilee Social Centre to pursue a career as a full-time artist. It’s also the year he was included in the group exhibition Fifty Years of Sculpture at the Grosvenor Gallery in London. It was an inspired time for him.

Large Seated Woman sees him returning to a familiar motif. Kumalo had already done other similar seated figures, produced much earlier, each dated 1959, 1960 and 1962. However, his work had become increasingly expressive as evidenced in his handling of the figure’s musculature and in his treatment of the surface of the sculpture which is marked with a striated and rough texture.

Magnificent and poised, Large Seated Woman is a culmination of his exploration of this theme. The work combines Kumalo’s interest in expressionism rooted in African sculptural tradition. It embodies the best of the artist’s skill and innovation. His time as a student at Rorke’s Drift Art and Craft Centre in KwaZulu-Natal and the benefit of creative exchanges with the Amadlozi Group which included Ezrom Legae, Cecil Skotnes, Cecily Sash, Giuseppe Cattaneo and Edoardo Villa are all evident in his masterful vision and execution of this exceptional work.