Sam Nhlengethwa is a South African creative collage artist and the co-founder of Bag Factory Artists' Studio.
Early life and education
Born in Payneville township of Springs in Gauteng, he relocated early with his family to Kwa-Thema and spent his childhood with his grandmother in Ratanda. Being born into a family of jazz lovers, Sam's work was inspired by jazz and townships he grew up in. He began collecting jazz records from the age of 17 and started assembling his art collection in 1977[1] while in school and swapped his own work for those of his schoolmates. In his own art, he drew inspiration from the townships where he grew up. He attended the Rorke's Drift and studied at the Johannesburg Art Foundation and the Mofolo Art Centre in Soweto.[2]
Work and career
Nhlengethwa began his career in 1976[3] and later taught part-time at the Johannesburg-based Federative Union of Black Artists (FUBA). While studying at the Mofolo Art Centre in Soweto, he participated in Thupelo and Triangle workshops. He co-founded the Bag Factory Artists’ Studio in Johannesburg in 1991 to provide studio space and artistic resources to black artists. He won the Standard Bank Young Artist award in 1994,[1] and worked as a television technician for South African Broadcasting Corporation for 13 years.
Jazz is rhythmic and it emphasizes interpretation rather than composition. There are deliberate tonal distortions that contribute to its uniqueness. My jazz collages, with their distorted patterns, attempt to communicate all of this.
— Sam Nhlengethwa
Nhlengethwa collage style niche uses hard-edge cut out and cut up shapes of ready-made images from selected reproductions and juxtaposed to make new images, often combined with other media to create new forms. He also work with photogravure and lithographs.[5] In his prints and paintings, he uses overlays of techniques such as collage painting, drawing and photography.[6]
Artworks
Sam Nhlengethwa had created 277 artworks[7] which includes:
2018 Inspired by Romare Bearden and Ernest Cole
2018 Waiting for Green
2018 ...to be rescued I & II
2019 The Market Square
2019 Park Station
2019 JSE in Winter
2019 South side of Constitution Hill
2013 Stand Accused
2014 Tribute to Ephraim Ngatane
Galleries
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
Goodman Gallery, Cape Town
Goodman Gallery, London
Exhibitions
He had been featured in 23 exhibitions[8] globally including:
2018 Feedback: Art, Africa and the 1980s, Iwalewahaus, Bayreuth, Germany
2014 Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA
2013 Group Exhibition: My Joburg, La Maison Rouge, 12e, Paris, France
2010 12th International Cairo Biennale, Cairo Biennale, Cairo, Egypt
2009 Abstract South African Art from the Isolation Years: Part 3, SMAC Art Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Selected solo exhibitions
He had been featured in 6 solo exhibitions[9] including:
2018 Sam Nhlengethwa: Waiting, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa.
2017 In Focus: Sam Nhlengethwa, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
2014 Sam Nhlengethwa: Some Final Tributes, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Selected works at auction
Sam Nhlengethwa's work has realized prices ranging from $81 USD to $66,202 USD in auctions (for Glimpses of the Fifties and Sixties in 2019).[9] He has 276 works[10] at auction including:
2018 Definitely Waiting for Someone
2012 The Launch
1988 Bus Stop
2006 Brandfort
1974 Dedicated to Victor Ndlazilwana
1996 Rehearsing
2006 Church Street, Kwa Guqa II
Art fairs
Frieze New York Online
Collaborations with printmaking studios
In the course of his career, Nhlengethwa had collaborated with various South African printmaking studios namely:[3]
