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Gladys Mgudlandlu and Maggie Laubser: Visionary Artists, Parallel Lives

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Gladys Mgudlandlu and Maggie Laubser: Visionary Artists, Parallel Lives Gladys Mgudlandlu GLADYS MGUDLANDLU AND MAGGIE LAUBSER: VISIONARY ARTISTS, PARALLEL LIVES PARALLEL ARTISTS, VISIONARY LAUBSER: AND MAGGIE MGUDLANDLU GLADYS and Maggie Laubser Visionary Artists, Parallel Lives Gladys Mgudlandlu and Maggie Laubser Visionary Artists, Parallel Lives Fine Art Auctioneers Consultants Maggie Laubser The Wood Carrier (Eastern Free State Landscape) oil on canvas 40 by 45 cm private collection 2 Introduction The uncanny relationship between the very similar, yet very upliftment. Mgudlandlu on the other hand frequently painted separate, lives of two of South Africa’s foremost artists, Gladys shadows, essentially referencing and acknowledging the spirits Mgudlandlu and Maggie Laubser, is explored in a special of the ancestors. Her nickname, Nomfanekiso, meaning the Strauss & Co exhibition being mounted virtually during the ‘shadow’, or the ‘picture of a human being’, was given to her 2020 RMB Turbine Art Fair in Johannesburg. The show focuses at birth because she was so small. She later jokingly said it was on the visionary nature of their work, and the lives they led in quite an apt nickname because she turned out to be a painter of parallel to one another. pictures! Both Mgudlandlu and Laubser grew up in rural settings, in the The phenomenal legacy of these two artists is indisputable: Eastern and Western Cape respectively, and both experienced a Laubser’s work has been the subject of many academic studies very religious upbringing: Mgudlandlu, from missionary stock, and boasts the only comprehensive catalogue raisonné published was a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and to date on the work of a South African artist. Mgudlandlu’s Laubser, from a conservative Afrikaans family, had a traditional work is especially important as she was the pioneer black woman Calvinist religious background, although she embraced Christian artist in the mainstream art world, and she serves as continuous Science quite early in her adult life. Both artists’ families and creative inspiration for others: from contemporary artist Kemang wider communities derided their artistic inclinations and the Wa Lehulere’s performative chalk drawings (part of his Standard early works and exhibitions of both were heavily criticized. Bank Young Artist award show in 2015) after he restored the Mgudlandlu’s were considered too innocent, naïve, and even murals in Mgudlandlu’s modest house in Gugulethu, outside escapist; Laubser’s were deemed too modern, initially, and later, Cape Town, to the creative restaging of a Mgudlandlu exhibition not modern enough! However, the work of neither of these artists by curator Nontobeko Ntombela at the Johannesburg Art fits within a Modernist paradigm, not even a South African one. Gallery in 2012. Both artists were fond of portrait painting, with Mgudlandlu There is only one circumstance where the parallel lives of these portraying rural Xhosa women, and Laubser, the urban bohemia two artists might have crossed: it is well-known that Mgudlandlu of Berlin early in her career, and later the rural working class. made a special point of visiting every one of Laubser’s They both looked closely at practices of labour in South Africa, exhibitions in Cape Town, although the two artists seem never to with Mgudlandlu introducing a gender dimension to cattle have met in person. herding, and Laubser depicting various aspects of harvesting, in particular. Most noticeable in their choice of subject matter Wilhelm van Rensburg though is their use of birds as recurring central motifs, with Mgudlandlu focusing most often on flocks of birds in the landscape, and Laubser favouring water birds and cranes. Their painting styles were virtually synchronised, with each cover Gladys Mgudlandlu Birds over a Field developing from strong, expressionist renderings to highly gouache on paper 49,5 by 58 cm private collection abstract works. The two artists shared a visionary, spiritual inside front cover Gladys Mgudlandlu Brown Rocks gouache on paper 57 by 29 cm private collection quality in their work. Laubser never painted any shadows, inside back cover Maggie Laubser Cat and Hibiscus everything was always bathed in bright sunlight. She even named oil on board 54 by 60 cm, private collection her house in the Strand, Western Cape, Altyd Lig (Forever back cover Maggie Laubser Landscape with Houses a Figure and a Cow Light), exemplifying her belief in the eternal power of spiritual oil on board 45 by 39,5 cm private collection 3 4 Part of Mgudlandlu’s rich heritage was the Eastern Cape bird lore. She knew the birds of the region intimately, called them her friends and painted them. Various birds of the Eastern Cape such as the honey bird, dove, pied crow, eagle, black-headed heron, African black oystercatcher, European oystercatcher and hawk, feature in her paintings. She was even called ‘uNontaka’ (‘the bird lady’). Although her birds appear imaginary, their habits and characteristics are identifiable. For Mgudlandlu birds become personalities. Her work suggests two viewpoints: one from below for birds and one from above for people. She said that the bird’s eye-view went back to her childhood. As a child she often climbed the rock of the Xhosa mystic and seer Ntsikana. From the heights of the rock, she enjoyed the landscape and the bird’s eye perspective was imprinted on her memory. Elza Miles (2002) Nomfanekiso Who Paints at Night: The Art of Gladys Mgudlandlu, Cape Town: Fernwood Press, pages 41 and 42. Gladys Mgudlandlu Birds over a Field gouache on paper 49,5 by 58 cm private collection 5 Maggie Laubser Flaminke by Kleinmond oil on canvas laid down on board 48 by 52 cm private collection Agency is reflected in Mgudlandlu’s biography and the fact that she This self-proclaiming statement speaks about the level of agency is a black South African women artist whose history is rooted in Mgudlandlu used to position and assert herself. Moreover, this the societal struggle of patriarchy and gender and racial exclusions. claim also calls upon her gender, race and geographical location One can observe her staking claim to these notions in the following in her attempt to make herself visible. It is in such self-conscious statement: representations that one is able to understand that the ways in which she presented herself in the public domain were in essence I think I can claim to be the first African woman in the country to ‘self-determined’. This further develops and posits the ‘self’ hold an exhibition. As far as I know I am the only African woman articulation for which black feminists argue. who has taken up painting seriously. It has become my first love and Nontobeko Ntombela (2013) A Fragile Archive: Refiguring/Rethinking/Reimagining/Re- there is nothing else I want to do. presenting Gladys Mgudlandlu, Cape Times, 15 August 1962 unpublished MAFA dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, pages 66 and 67. 6 Gladys Mgudlandlu Three Birds gouache on paper 50 by 37,5 cm private collection 7 Maggie Laubser Bird in a Landscape with Rays oil on canvas laid down on board 45 by 40 cm private collection 8 Maggie Laubser Black Swan and Sailing Boats oil on canvas 55 by 45 cm private collection 9 Maggie Laubser Goose and Arum Lilies oil on canvas 47 by 57 cm private collection 10 11 left Gladys Mgudlandlu Portrait of a Woman in a Red Dress gouache on paper 50 by 36 cm private collection 12 page 13 Maggie Laubser Portrait of Mrs Pretorius oil on cardboard 47,5 by 39 cm private collection Marion Arnold (1996: 121) observes that a first generation of white South African women artists left no evidence to suggest that they regarded their art works as transgressive explorations of female status and identity. It was only a more adventurous Modernist generation that claimed the right to be artists despite being female and who were given licence by society to be eccentric, assertive or non-stereotypical women. One such Modernist was Maggie Laubser. Brenda Schmahmann (2004) Through the Looking Glass: Representations of Self by South African Women Artists, Johannesburg: David Krut, page 10. 13 Maggie Laubser Woman with Kopdoek oil on canvas 60 by 51 cm private collection 14 Maggie Laubser Portrait of an Old Woman oil on cardboard 41,5 by 36 cm private collection Laubser’s portraits might perhaps speak of a female’s endeavours by Schmidt-Rottluff’s portraits. Equally, in its avoidance of any to negotiate avant-garde initiatives within a visual discourse particular signifiers of sexual allure, Laubser does not construct in which the woman artist is an anomaly. The cool, almost her portraits as desirable ‘others’. The slight slackening of the detached division of the face into simplified visual components chin, that is a feature of many women in their middle age is in suggests no impetus on the part of Laubser to construct her evidence but is presented as dispassionately as the line of the sitters as troubled outsiders or bohemians, visionaries on the brow, the shape of the nose, the form of the hair. margins of society. One does not read the robust mark-making Brenda Schmahmann (2004) Through the Looking Glass: Representations of Self by here as a signifier of anxiety or passion – a reading encouraged South African Women Artists, Johannesburg: David Krut, page 10. 15 Maggie Laubser Native Woman oil on board dimensions unavailable sabc art collection 16 17 above Maggie Laubser Woman Stamping Mealies oil on canvas laid down on board 45 by 54,5 cm private collection page 19 Maggie Laubser Harvesters oil on canvas laid down on board 39,5 by 52 cm private collection 18 Recalling her time in Europe [Maggie Laubser] commented: of decorative elements and as contexts for dark figures. Placed ‘Sometimes my friends in Europe asked me if I didn’t miss the to occupy pictorial rather that logical, physical space, the figures South African sun and every time my answer was no – no, not the identify the landscape and provide local content.
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