Context (CMS Context)
Presented by The Art Fund and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. An acquisition project to build a collection of modern and contemporary work on paper from Australia, Canada and South Africa was undertaken over 2011-13 with the support of a grant under The Art Fund's RENEW programme. The collection was developed with the expert advice and generous assistance of Annie Coombes and Norman Vorano in relation to South African and Inuit artists respectively. Khadija Carroll, Anita Herle and Diana Wood Conroy also contributed to the selection process. Obtained as part of a larger group of prints (2013.266- 283) from The Artists' Press (The Artists' Press, Waterboard Farm, White River, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa).

Sam Nhlengethwa (b. 1955) is one of South Africa's most important living artists. He studied at Rorke's Drift and sustains the legacy of that foundationally-important art centre, that exemplified the vital work of printmaking in empowering and representing black South African experience and history. He went on to win a major prize, Standard Bank's Young Artist of the Year, in 1994, the year of South Africa's first democratic elections. Since then he has exhibited extensively, nationally and internationally. His work has embraced a range of techniques, styles and subjects. It is enormously valuable for a UK collection, in that the range of his prints effectively communicate key dimensions of South African life, ranging from mine-work and township life through defining events of the history of the struggle to the inspiration of jazz.

MAA’s selection represents his practice over a period of almost twenty years, and a unique vision that is at once political and historical, and rich in personal insight. 'Modern Jazz Quartet's last concert' is a and beautiful work celebrating one of the most influential modern jazz bands, active from 1952 through to the 1990s. The print signals the significance of jazz for African imaginations and the interplay between black American and African music that was vital and empowering in different ways throughout the twentieth century.

Event Date 7/3/2014
Author: maa

Description (CMS Description)
Four colour lithograph by Sam Nhlengethwa, inscribed, signed and dated by the artist, titled 'Modern Jazz Quartet's Last Concert', 2002. Edition 30/50. Condition: excellent. 'TAP.01-23' written on the rear in pencil
Event Date 7/3/2014
Author: maa