Artwork date: 2004
Signature details: each signed, dated, numbered A/P II and each print numbered sequentially out of 30, inscribed with the title in pencil in the margin and embossed with The Artists' Press chopmark bottom right
Literature: Dundas, N., Mtombela, N., Dalamba, L. & Mokoena, H. (2019). 'Leeto: A Sam Nhlengethwa Print Retrospective'. Johannesburg: Goodman Gallery, other examples from the edition illustrated in colour on pp. 34 to 43, 48, 49 to 54, 62, 63.

(30)

sheet size: 49 x 38.5 cm; image size: 20 x 28.5 cm each unframed

Provenance:

Private collection, Johannesburg.

Including:

1/30: Near the Bus Stop
2/30: Azikhwelwa
3/30: Sharpeville Massacre
4/30: The End of Kofifi
5/30: Stop it Verwoerd
6/30: Protests
7/30: A Tired Miner
8/30: Miners Showering
9/30: Humiliation
10/30: Compounds
11/30: The Shebeen
12/30: While We Were Young I
13/30: Pass Raid
14/30: Whites Only Area
15/30: Migrant Labourers
16/30: Gumboot Dance
17/30: Colleagues
18/30: Part Time Job I
19/30: Underground
20/30: While We Were Young II
21/30: While We Were Young III
22/30: Candlelit Studying
23/30: Skipping
24/30: The Grinding Stone
25/30: Pay Day
26/30: Hard at Work II
27/30: Part Time Job II
28/30: Coal Shed
29/30: Mbombela
30/30: Hard at Work I

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

In Glimpses of the Fifties and Sixties Sam Nhlengethwa explored the relationship between the collage and the printing processes. Initially creating collages, he then digitized them and went through various plates before the trial proof was made for the series. Material was sourced from archives of Drum magazine as well as the artist’s personal archives. Each colour photolithograph was printed by hand from pre-sensitised aluminium plates. Commenting on the series, the artist notes,

[The] use of my own archive was important because I wanted to reflect an intimacy and a familiarity that would make the images accessible. Looking through the albums I reminisced about growing up in my grandmother's house and how I always found the dining room with the wedding photograph so intriguing. I also recalled enjoying a softball match in Westonaria (a small mining community on the West Rand) amidst the many dompas and curfew laws. Today these images have now been revived in the music videos of Mafikizolo and the 'Stoned Cherry' fashion label. I think I'm lucky in the sense that I have used art as an outlet for the frustrations I encountered during this time. My visual expression through painting was therapeutic and has now been transformed into what I believe to be an historical retrospective.[1]

^{[1] Sam Nhlengethwa Glimpses of the 50s and 60s. (2004). Sam Nhlengethwa for The Artist’s Press. [online].}

^{https://www.artprintsa.com/sam-nhlengethwa.html (Accessed 27 October 2023)}

COLLECTIONS

The artist is represented in numerous local and international collections, notably, the Standard Bank Corporate Collection, Johannesburg; SABC Collection, Johannesburg; Durban Art Gallery; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Johannesburg Art Gallery and the Tatham Art Gallery, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.