NEDBANK 

ART SUITE

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HERE, THERE & FORWARD

African Woman

Gladys Mgudlandlu 

c. 1917/1925 – 1979

Artwork Details

Artist           Gladys Mgudlandlu  
Title             African Woman
Date            1967
Medium      Oil on Board (73 x 36.5 cm)

About the Artist

Gladys Nomfanekiso Mgudlandlu (c. 1917/1925–1979) was a South African artist and educator born in the Peddie district of the Eastern Cape and was later based in Cape Town. Sources differ on her birth year, with 1917 and 1925 cited most often. Inconsistent records and disputed dates remain a recurring issue in the study of South African black modernist artists.

She qualified as a teacher at Lovedale College in 1940 or 1941 and was otherwise largely self-taught, drawing early instruction from her grandmother’s Xhosa mural traditions. She received the Arts SA Today Exhibition Award in 1963 and was posthumously awarded the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver in 2003. Mgudlandlu is documented as one of the first recognised female artists of colour in South Africa.

About this Artwork

Made in 1967, African Woman is one of Mgudlandlu’s earliest recorded paintings. Throughout her career, Mgudlandlu drew inspiration from memories of her simple life in the Eastern Cape, often portraying women, landscapes and village scenes through a highly personal visual language. Her paintings are characterised by simplified forms and expressive colour, reflecting what she described as her identity as a ‘dreamer-imaginist’. Working from memory, she was less concerned with precise representation than with conveying atmosphere, experience and dignity of women’s labour.