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Wednesday, 27 December 2017

Discovering the Botshabelo Mission and Gerard Sekoto

Today we visited this abandoned Lutheran Mission Station on a farm just outside Middelburg, established by Alexander Merensky and Heinrich Grützner of the the Berlin Missionary Society in 1865. The Mission specialised in training people in scripture in native languages. It was here in 1914 that the first complete translation of the bible in a native language (Sepedi) was completed. I think that is the language written around the chancel arch, a translation of John 14.6 : 

Tsela ke nna, le therešo, le bophelo. Ga go e a tlago go Tate ge e se ka nna  
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 

The church, which has been restored in the past few years, was once the biggest Lutheran Church south of the Orange River. Fort Merensky on the high ground above the church was built to defend the Mission from attacks by the Bapedi King.  Despite these threats the Mission grew to a population of 420 within the first year and at its peak counted 113 black families – mainly Pedi and some Ndbele people. Whilst the Mission aimed to train native speakers to act as lay-readers and teachers (known as National Helpers or “Nationalhelferen”) the Mission buildings were segregated – the black families living in a village of stone and tin houses across the river from the main part of the mission. Today the site houses a recreation of a Ndebele village. 


It was at the Botshabelo Mission that the celebrated artist Jan “Gerard” Sekoto was born; his parents, Andreas and Anna were also born here. Gerard Sekoto (9 December 1913- 20 March 1993) was an artist and musician recognised as the pioneer of urban black art and social realism “The Father of Modern South African Art.” Sekoto attended the Grace Dieu Diocesan Teacher Training College in Pietersburg and here his talents as an artist were noticed. In 1938 aged 25 he left teaching to pursue a career as an artist, moving to Sophiatown and then District Six in Cape Town.

 In 1940, when Johannesburg Art Gallery bought “Yellow Houses” – Sekoto’s painting of a Street in Sophiatown, which was the first work by a black artist to enter the Museum’s collection. Unlike much of his other work, this painting seems to focus on the built environment rather than the South African people. In 1945 he moved to Eastwood in Pretoria from where most of his best known works were painted including Song of the Pick (1946) and Prayer in Church (1947).




His painting "Prayer in Church" is typical of his "social realism" providing a glimpse of everyday life, perhaps based on his own experience. The congregation seems to be gathered in a chapel. There is a preacher in the pulpit - perhaps it is a Lutheran Church, like the church at Botshabelo, where Sekoto was born? Maybe the preacher is is father, one of the Missions "National Helpers"? You can see everyone is black skinned. Sekoto rarely painted white people. Is the Corpus in the background a mixture of a black and white skin? Perhaps it is the light. The older children are praying facing the congregation. A young girl and a young boy sit at the back - is the girl trying to pray but being distracted by the young boy - or is she upset? The colours are dark and sombre - but the white of the cross shines through. Light in the darkness - a symbol of hope.

 Later in 1948 Gerard Sekoto fled to Paris where he worked initially as a musician in the bars and cafes and composing poems and songs on themes of loneliness in exile, eventually finding fame as an artist; fame which led to him becoming more widely known for his opposition to apartheid. His depiction of Steve Biko’s death shows Biko’s mother in the centre – left behind. Sekoto was never able to return to South Africa, even to attend the funeral of his mother. He died in Paris in 1993.

Sekoto’s biographer N.Chabani Manganyi (“I Am an African: The Life and Times of Gerard Sekoto”) explains that despite his strict Lutheran upbringing, Sekoto did not remain devoted to the church in later life – but his faith helped develop a philosophy which turned his pursuit of art into a kind of personal worldly religion. Sekoto said “Art is a human virtue and I have given my whole self to it, for it promotes understanding among races rather than destroys it.”

Links:

BBC News - South Africa celebrates Gerard Sekoto legacy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC4cpPb5LpU   
http://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-22766310
https://mg.co.za/multimedia/2013-05-02-song-for-sekoto-1







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