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Artist profile: Gerard Sekoto
‘Art is the spark, the illumination which is socially significant for it brings about understanding’ – Gerard Sekoto (1913–1993) Gerard Sekoto was born in Botshabelo, Mpumalanga provinc...
Smoking and snorting tobacco in South Africa
The Portuguese introduced tobacco into southern Africa in the 1500s, and it rapidly became an important part of South African life. By the 1800s, tobacco was widely used and many objects were mad...
Mapungubwe and the first kingdom of southern Africa
800 years ago, the city of Mapungubwe was the capital of the first kingdom in southern Africa, which thrived as a sophisticated trading centre from around 1220 to 1290. Gold ornaments, glass tr...
Coldstream Stone
This stone, known as the Coldstream Stone after the place where it was found, is one of the earliest known pieces of two-dimensional figurative art from South Africa. The artist has used red and ...
Nelson Mandela: South African icon
‘EACH OF US IS AS INTIMATELY ATTACHED TO THE SOIL OF THIS BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY AS ARE THE FAMOUS JACARANDA TREES OF PRETORIA AND THE MIMOSA TREES OF THE BUSHVELD… THE TIME FOR THE HEALING OF WOU...
Origins of art and artistic thought
OUR ABILITY TO THINK AND ACT USING SYMBOLS – AND TO MAKE ART AS A RESULT – IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF BEING HUMAN. In South Africa the development of artistic activity has left a visible trace ...
Artist profile: Kara Walker
‘EVERYTHING THAT I DO STARTS WITH AN EFFORT IN RECALLING WHO I AM. CRAWLING THROUGH THE CLUTTER OF WHO I AM SUPPOSED TO BE; WHO SOMEBODY ELSE THINKS I AM. EXTERNAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF RACE AND GE...
Processions on the Nile
The annual ancient Egyptian celebration of the Mysteries of Osiris took place in all major cities, including Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus . It was the most important religious event of the ye...
Illuminating shadow puppets
Our free exhibition delves into the world of shadow puppet theatre from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Full of movement and mythology, shadow puppet performances have endured for a very long t...
Artist Esther Mahlangu
‘I have been making art all my life because it is in my heart and in my blood. When I paint I am happy. I strived to show people from all over the world my work and to tell them my story as an ...
‘Reclamation’ by Lionel Davis
‘Being under house arrest is a very traumatic experience. You’re your own jailer. At the time, I was looking for a channel, for something to heal myself, although I never thought of it in tha...
The Mysteries of Osiris
The Mysteries of Osiris was the most important religious event of the year in ancient Egypt. It was celebrated in all major cities, including Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus , where even the Greek...
A Reversed Retrogress
‘Colour is important in South Africa – we make it important. Colour places you, colour tells where you are within the geography of South Africa. And when I thought of colour, I realised that ...
Schroda clay figurines
The small figurines here represent a rare opportunity to view the social concerns of people in southern Africa a thousand years ago. They come from a group of more than a hundred figures found at...
Greek kings, Egyptian pharaohs
The general Ptolemy founded the Greco-Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled Egypt for nearly 300 years after Alexander the Great ’s death. The Ptolemies tried to gain the support of Egyptian...
Bust of Neilos
This 2,000-year-old bust depicts Neilos, the Nile river god. Neilos appealed to Egyptians and Greeks alike – he was the Greek version of Hapy, the Egyptian personification of the annual Nile fl...
Curator’s favourite object
The BP exhibition Sunken cities: Egypt’s lost worlds features incredible sculptures excavated from beneath the waves. Here, Exhibition Curator Aurélia Masson-Berghoff tells us about one of th...
Plastic fantastic
The Bank of England issued their first polymer (plastic) banknote on 13 September 2016. Here’s a look back at the history of non-paper banknotes from around the world. Before polymer banknote...
The Gregorian calendar
Great Britain (and the British Empire – including the eastern part of what is now the United States) moved from using the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar on Wednesday 2 September 1752...
Rock painting of San|Bushmen
Rock art is one of South Africa’s oldest artistic traditions. It was first made by the ancestors of San|Bushmen and Khoekhoen, South Africa’s first peoples, at least 30,000 years ago. This ro...