Context (CMS Context)
(Bio) 'Vuminkosi Zulu (1948-1996) was born on 24 November 1948 in Mapumulo, KwaZulu-Natal. From the age of thirteen Zulu attended school in Kranskop for six years and completed Standard VII at Kranskop High School. From 1970 to 1972 he attended Rorke's Drift. In 1973 he was awarded the Hajee Sulman Ebrahim Memorial Trust award. He worked for a time with Mahlangu in the Transvaal before returning to Rorke's Drift again between 1976 and 1977.
He created a monumental woodcarving entitled 'The Battle of Isandlwana' in 1982 for which he was awarded a sculpture prize. This piece is in the old KwaZulu parliamentary building in Ulundi. Together with many of his colleagues his work was shown at the Brooklyn Museum's 'Black South Africa: Contemporary Graphics' exhibition in 1976 and in an exhibition that toured Germany in 1978 and 1979. In 1990 he received the Thupelo scholarship, which allowed him to spend six months in Sweden. Before his death he worked at the Caversham Press in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands. Examples of his work can be seen in numerous South African and overseas collections. Zulu died on 4 November 1996 in Edendale Hospital, Pietermaritzburg.' [From http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/vuminkosi-zulu-0]. Also featured in Hobbs and Rankin: 'Rorke's Drift Empowering Prints', 2003, p.225-226.
Event Date 13/8/2014
Author: Remke van der Velden

Context (CMS Context)
Acquired by Hobbs from the collector Ronel Kellner in Johannesburg, c. 1998. Very small edition. One of the works made by Rorke's Drift artists post 1982. From an unpublished internal documents, 'Comments on valuations of Rorke's Drift works in the Hobbs collection', by P. Hobbs, undated [2013] and From an unpublished internal document, ‘PH Comments on artworks', by P. Hobbs, undated [2013].
Event Date 13/8/2014
Author: Remke van der Velden

Context (CMS Context)
The Hobbs' Rorke's Drift Collection was purchased from the collector, South African printmaker and art historian Philippa Anne Hobbs, with money from the Victoria and Albert Museum Purchase Grant Fund, The Art Fund and private donations. The collection included items received through a combination of gift and purchase.

From the early 1960s, one of the most important centres for new practice in southern Africa was the Evangelical Lutheran Art and Craft Centre, situated at the battlefield site of Rorke's Drift in what is now KwaZulu Natal. The project was led by teachers, Peder and Ulla Gowenius, graduates of the Konstfackskolan, a Bauhaus style modernist institute. They worked with patients recuperating from tuberculosis at the Ceza Hospital and saw crafts such as weaving essentially as therapeutic, but economic empowerment was also an aim, hence work was sold locally and through exhibitions in Sweden, a training programme was developed, and printmaking was introduced early in 1962. From the beginning, linocuts made by Azaria Mbatha (1941-) and Muziweyixhwala Tabethe were highly impressive; they embraced Biblical subjects, indigenous belief, and historical scenes related to Zulu identity.

In 1963 the ELC relocated to Rorke's Drift and expanded its activities. The Centre was virtually alone in providing a place during the Apartheid period in which black artists could train and produce work. In 1968 Otto and Malin Lundbohm arrived, bringing new expertise in textile screenprinting; Otto Lundbohm became principal in 1969 and led the school until 1975. Students who became major practitioners included Dan Rakgoathe (1937-), Vuminkosi Zulu (1948-1996), Charles Nkosi (1949), Tony Nkotsi (1955-), and Sam Nhlengethwa (1955-).

From the mid-1990s Philippa Hobbs collaborated with Elizabeth Rankin towards what is now the standard monograph, Rorke's Drift: Empowering Prints (2003). To facilitate her research she assembled a collection, purchasing some works from artists, and a substantial group from former principal, Otto Lundbohm, who had himself bought the prints directly from the artists. A total of 61 works fully represent the development of printmaking at Rorke's Drift. The collection includes the key early works by Mbatha and Tabete, dating from 1962, and prints by all the other significant Rorke's Drift artists. These are complemented by a further 22 prints made by Rorke's Drift artists after the centre closed in 1982; this group includes Joel Sibisi's 1994 print, Voting at Rorke's Drift, bringing the story into the post-Apartheid period. The Hobbs collection is the strongest of any private collection representing the ELC and these artists and incorporates the personal collection of a key figure, centre principal Otto Lundbohm.

The collection represents what is not only a chapter of foundational importance in South African art history, but a vital movement that exemplifies the emergence of local modernisms worldwide. With the encouragement of outside teachers, these Zulu and other artists embraced new techniques and styles and produced art that imagined a changing world and their place within it. This was an art that gave voice to visions of liberation as well as to customary belief, the local vision of history and the environment, and to the Christian theology that became and remains fundamental and empowering for many Africans today.
Event Date 13/8/2014
Author: maa

Description (CMS Description)
Etching and aquatint by Vuminkosi Zulu titled 'My father in serious pain', 1990. Edition: 5/10. Signed, dated and inscribed: '5/10 My father in serious pain V. Zulu 90'. Condition: Good. Unevenly printed on paper. Creases and bubbling on paper on outside of printed area.
Event Date 13/8/2014
Author: maa