Gerard Sekoto (9 Dec. 1913 – 20 March 1993); South African artist and musician. He is recognized as the pioneer of urban black art and social realism. His work was exhibited in Paris, Stockholm, Venice, Washington, and Senegal, as well as in South Africa. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Sekoto) He was born 9 September 1913 in Botshabelo, a German missionary station (Lutheran Church) for the Pedi community in Middleburg, Transvaal. He had a strict Christian upbringing and his family were quite well educated. Music also played an important part of his early upbringing within the missionary environment and throughout his life. He became a teacher near Pietersburg but after he won a prize in a national art competition in 1938 he left teaching and moved to Sophiatown, where he started to paint full time. During the 1940’s and early 1950’s Sophiatown became a center of black art, politics, and culture; however, in 1955, the ruling South African National Party passed the Group Areas Act which ordered for the removal of the black residents of Sophiatown. Local artists Alexis Preller and Judith Gluckman taught him to work in oil. He was unhappy in the racially segregated environment in Johannesburg, and moved to District Six in Cape Town where he developed his distinctive style. In 1945 he moved to Eastwood in Pretoria where most of his best known paintings were painted. His art can be divided into three periods: the late 1930s in Sophiatown; the early 1940s in District Six; and 1940s in Eastwood, Pretoria. His work in Paris from 1947 onwards was less characteristic as is seen in the Senegalese Dancers which shows Cubistic infleunce. He is recognized as a pioneer in urban black art, and social realism. His work became less about recording views of his environment or observed reality, and more about using line, form, shape and color as expressive means in and of themselves. (https://nladesignvisual.wordpress.com/author/sophiasuzette/page/12/) undefined

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