Cecil Skotnes was born in a poor neighbourhood of East London. Hisfather was an ordained Lutheranminister and missionary, and bothhe and his mother were activemembers of the Salvation Army. Itwas from his parents that Skotnesabsorbed his concern for thewelfare of others.Skotnes fought against fascism inWorld War II in Italy with South Af-rican troops, after which he stayedon to study painting in Florence. Onreturning to South Africa, he studiedart at the University of the Witwa-tersrand from 1947 to 1950. After completing his BA Fine Artsdegree, Skotnes married ThelmaCarter in 1951. Their son John is agoldsmith and sculptor and daugh-ter, Pippa, a Professor of Fine Art atthe University of Cape Town.In 1952 Skotnes was appointed

as cultural ofcer at a recreational

centre in Polly Street, Johannes-burg, which offered adult educationprogrammes for black people. Un-der his guidance the facility came

to be identied as an art centre anddeveloped into a signicant training

ground for a generation of blackartists. In the early 1960s the artcentre moved to Eloff Street andsubsequently, as apartheid policiesbecame entrenched, to Soweto.In 1963 Skotnes helped to establishthe Amadlozi group (the name waschosen by him and means “spirit of our ancestors”). This group, whichalso included Guiseppe Cattaneo,Cecily Sash, Sidney Kumalo,Edoardo Villa and later, EzromLegae, sought to work at the inter-section of traditional (or classical) African and European art.Having lived in Johannesburg since1946, Skotnes made Cape Townhis home in 1978. Here he resumedpainting after decades as a print-maker, and continued to engagewith younger and less privilegedartists, establishing the ceramicssection at the Nyanga Art Centreand teaching at the Community ArtsProject in the 1980s.

Cecil Skotnes

“As chronicler of the South African situation, I could not think in European terms. My approach had to originate here, otherwise my art would be a lie of little importance”

Female gure

, Carved and incised painted panelWritten and researched by Emile Maurice and Jo-Anne Duggan

Skotnes’ early woodcuts wereabstract landscapes in a horizontalformat. In Europe, landscapeswere traditionally rendered throughpainting. What Skotnes soughtthrough making landscapes in printform was, however, not simply toengage local places and spaces,but to distinguish his work as anAfrican artist from that which wasproduced in Europe.One of Skotnes’ primary concernswas to tell a story through serial-

ised imagery, and the rst of his

famous narrative print portfolioswas The Assassination of Shaka(1973), which was accompaniedby an epic poem by poet, writer and academic Stephen Gray.When the portfolio of 43 prints – most of which deal with mo-ments of action, like ‘Shaka killsthe mamba’ – and poem werelaunched as an exhibition at theGoodman Gallery in Johannesburgin 1973, the show was a sell-out.In 1976, a few months after theSoweto uprising, Skotnes wrotean article for the Rand Daily Mail(3 November 1976) in which hecommented: “South Africa is atpresent embroiled in a classicalrevolutionary situation and that thestimulation arising from the situa-tion should affect all elements of the creative society and in particu-lar the artist…and if the times have

little inuence on the artist’s work,

especially such momentous times,he should seek a new profession.”Skotnes took his words seri-ously, as some of his works fromthe 1980s allude to the politicalturbulence of the times, as seen,for example, in Township Martyr (1986) and other prints from thisera. Alongside the famous publicpersona, there was also the moreprivate Skotnes, represented inworks that are intimately entangledwith his personal life. This was thecornerstone of his last exhibitionbefore death claimed him – CECILSKOTNES: A PRIVATE VIEW:Images from the archive of Ceciland Thelma Skotnes (2008), atIziko South African National Gal-lery, Cape Town, and the StandardBank Gallery, Johannesburg. What

the show reected, amongst other

things, was how Skotnes used artto build family bonds and expresshis love towards his wife and kin.What links Skotnes’ more privateworks, his African-inspired land-scapes, which draw on everythingfrom thorn bushes to primevalrocks and sun-baked earth, andhis more politically orientatedworks from the 1980s is a strongengagement with life and the en-vironment. Ultimately, though, hisplace in South African art historyrests on his quest for a hybrid art,combining European modern-

ism (he was strongly inuenced

by German Expressionism andCubism) with a distinctly African

identity, a seed rst planted in his

days with the Amadlozi group inthe 1960s. As he once said when speakingof his search for an African idiomin art,“As chronicler of the South Africansituation, I could not think inEuropean terms. My approach hadto originate here, otherwise my artwould be a lie of little importance”.

Skotnes’s trademark style

Analysis of the artist’s work, key stylistic inuences

(Left to Right)

Shaka kills the mamba

, 1973. Woodcut. According to poet Stephen Gray, such was the demand by collectors when the print portfolio, The Assassination of Shaka, was launched at the Good-man Gallery, Johannesburg, in 1973, that “frenzied buying and reselling occurred on the spot”. Lithograph “

Shaka’s Regiment in Horn Formation

” Signed & Dated 73.

Shaka the king

,1973. Woodcut. Famous author Kurt Vonnegut, writing to Stephen Gray, had this to say about the The Assassination of Shaka portfolio: “The Assassination of Shaka is the best present Ihave received. You and Mr. Skotnes took control of my head and made me feel big things very foreign to me. It is the most successful collaboration between a poet and an artist that has ever come to myattention. It is better than the collaboration between William Blake and William Blake.”

Mhlangane Stabs Shaka

Woodcut. Pippa Skotnes, the artist’s daughter, has said of her father, “Watching him makeprints was a process which seemed to me to be deeply rooted in some kind of magic.”Skotnes began to develop his trademark incised and paintedwood panels, a format that developed from his printmaking, in the1950s. Although he never forsook painting, the woodblock wasto remain his preferred medium for a number of decades. Thesepanels, sometimes adapted to make doors and pelmets, and werealso used in public commissions, as in his 1820 Settler panels(1984-86) for the Settler Monument in Grahamstown.Skotnes made works about the landscape – nature was a major inspiration – Christianity, political upheaval, confrontation, history,heroes (Shaka and Wolraad Woltemade, for example), good andevil, anguish and pain, and also focused on still-lifes and portraits – all of which is held together by his trademark abstraction withoften spiritual overtones, highly structured composition, powerful

design sense and bold archetypal gures. As with all great artists,

his art is stamped by a very particular character, or signature,embedded in the fabric of the work, and his work is instantlyrecognisable.

Cecil Skotnes, fragment of a once larger incised and painted wooden panel on the theme of the death of Shaka. Undated

In 1984 Skotnes was commis-sioned by the 1820 Foundation inGrahamstown to make a work tomark the arrival of English settlersin South Africa. His brief was tosymbolically convey the British-speaking experience in South Africa, from the time of the settlers’arrival to their involvement in thecreation of an equal opportunitysociety.Skotnes’ work is allegorical anduses the notion of the seasonsto convey the idea of decay andregeneration. The theme is playedout in the four sections of the work,each comprising six panels in a

vertical format. The rst section,

a reference to autumn and winter,deals with wars prior to 1820, bothin Europe and South Africa. Thisis followed by the next six panelsmaking up The Frontier, wherethe focus is on new beginningsfor all, both black and white – anallusion to spring. The third sec-tion, Towards a New Society, asymbolic summer, is concernedwith harmony and equal rights.

The nal section is dedicated to

the arts and creativity – the meansthrough which people can attainthe ideals of unity and freedom.The panels were nearly de-

stroyed when a re erupted at the

Monument on 13 August 1994.Fortunately they were only dam-aged by smoke and were restoredby Skotnes himself.

1820 Settler Panels Commission (1984-86)

con for my dead uncle II

, 1998. Oil on wood

Cat

, 1960. Woodcut. Pippa Skotnes recalls: “The image I remember mostclearly from my early childhood (he made this for me for my third Christ-mas) was a large cat, roughly cut in wood and printed by hand with the

back of a spoon on ne rice paper, which hung on my bedroom wall…”

Figures in an alien landscape

, 1981. Acrylic on board. Landscape was amajor theme in Skotnes’ work over the decades.From the portfolio,

The White Monday Disaster

, 1975. Woodcut. Follow-ing the print portfolio, The Assassination of Shaka (1973), Skotnes’ nextcollaboration with poet Stephen Gray, the White Monday Disaster, alsotook the form of what the artist called a ‘block book’. By this, according toGray, “he meant a work in which the content was to be conveyed throughthe prints and words simultaneously”. Comprising 13 prints and 13 stan-zas in ballad form, this work commemorates the heroic efforts of WolraadWoltemade, who, on horseback, rescued some of the shipwrecked fromthe Jonge Thomas, when it sank in Table Bay in 1773. Like The Assas-sination of Shaka, this work was also launched at the Goodman Gallery – “to the usual satisfactory sell-out,” says Gray.

Untitled

, 1980. Woodcut. Some of Skotnes’ work from the 1980s reects

the political turbulence of the times. In this work, made to illustrate one of

Nadine Gordimer’s stories, a gure raises a clenched st, symbol of the

anti-apartheid struggle.

Figures in an alien landscape :

Cecil Skotnes, Figures in an alien land-scape, 1981. Acrylic on board. Landscape was a major theme in Skotnes’work over the decades.

For Thelma

: For Thelma, Christmas, 1992. Conte on paper. Skotnes’ lastexhibition, CECIL SKOTNES: A PRIVATE VIEW: Images from the archive

of Cecil and Thelma Skotnes (2008), was a tting and beautiful tribute

to an artist who occupies a central place in South African art history, andsomething of a capping of a glorious career. Among the works on showwas For Thelma, Christmas 1992 – an exquisite drawing, made as apresent for the artist’s wife. It carries the inscription, “My darling a verybeautiful Christmas and wonderful things in 1993. Love me”.

GALLERY

Mural for St. Charles Lwanga Church, Mbekweni, Paarl, Western Cape.