L’Ancêtre / The Ancestor Tapestry
L Ancêtre or The Ancestor is a painting, seemingly abstract but not so on closer scrutiny, which pays tribute to Mancoba’s great grandmother at the same time as it pays tribute to the land of his birth, South Africa. The colours of the land and the stories of its people’s are reflected in this painting, which also has a call for peace and dialogue at its centre. The Constitutional Court will be the recipient of a tapestry of this painting. It is an apt work to be woven into a tapestry to hang in the highest seat of justice of our land.
L’ANCETRE (1969 – 71) ERNEST MANCOBA, Oil on canvas, 92.3 x 60.3 cm, Johannesburg Art Gallery
Mancoba’s work is mainly in collections in Europe. There are a few pieces, including L’Ancetre, in South Africa either in private hands or in gallery collections. This project, supported by the Department of Arts and Culture, provides an opportunity for this significant work to be on permanent public display in South Africa and inform the ongoing discourse about lost aspects of our heritage.
Serendipitously, at the same time as the youth of South Africa are questioning the meaning of history and symbolism in public sculpture the trust is able to provide a bust for public display of an ‘unknown’ black man done in the 1930s which is in fact that of the internationally recognised painter and sculptor, Ernest Mancoba as a young man.
Dorothy Randall (1935) Plaster of Paris
I regard Joseph as one of South Africa’s greatest weavers and his work would be a wonderful woven interpretation of a great South African artists work, in fact the weaving would be a work of art in its own right.
Marguerite Stephens Tapestry Studio