A Vigil of Departure: Louis Khehla Maqhubela, a retrospective 1960-20.
Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg,
3 August to 18 September 2010

Maqhubela was born in Durban in 1939, went to school in Johannesburg and studied at the Polly Street Art Centre under the direction of Cecil Skotnes and Sydney Kumalo. He excelled in many media – painting in oils and watercolour, drawing and mosaics.

Maqhubela had no immediate successors in the stylistic sense; his art is too personal and private, too enigmatic for followers to emulate. His was the role of mentor to some, an innovator and a herald of things to come. He understood that there was a world and a discourse beyond the familiar and he wanted to be part of that world. The time has come for South Africans to once again...