Moses Tladi: Painting Homesickness
by Karin Berkman -- In 1929, at the tenth annual exhibition of the South African Academy held in Johannesburg, eight works by Moses Tladi (1903-1959) were displayed. Two years later, in 1931, two of his landscape paintings were included in the exhibition that formally opened the South African National Gallery in Cape Town. In both instances Tladi was the first black painter to have his work publicly exhibited in these venues. Tladi, the “native artist” was a curiosity, arousing wide interest. Benny Lewis, the art critic of The Star , reviewed the two National Gallery paintings: “I must refer to two landscapes . . . by Moses Tladi, a Basuto houseboy in Johannesburg, who is quite untaught. They are something of a portent. In a naive technique all his own, Tladi tells the stark truth in a poetic way. The atmosphere of the Witwatersrand is in these pictures unmistakable to all who know the Transvaal” (Cape, December 11, 193, quoted in Read Lloyd, 2013, 11). The pointed del...