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Magadledla, Fikile

Born in Newclare, Johannesburg in 1952.  As a youngster he was a boxer. After he left school in 1969, he attended art classes at the studio of Bill Ainslie, which would later become the Johannesburg Art Foundation. Many black artists studied with Ainslie as art training was scarce and not readily accessible, especially to black artists.

 

He became a full-time artist in the early 1970s and was also assistant art teacher to Legae at the African Music and Drama Association in Johannesburg.  He was co-founder of the Soweto Art Association.  He often invited artists to exhibit at his home in Orange Grove.

 

Magadlela was one of the artists who took part in a group exhibition at the Lidchi Art Gallery in Johannesburg in 1973.  His first solo exhibition of drawings at the well-known Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg took place a few years later, in 1979.  He was represented in several major exhibitions such as Black Art Today at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg (1981) and an exhibition at the National Museum and Art Gallery in Gaborone, Botswana/

 

As a talented but mainly self-taught artist, Magadlela experimented and worked in many art mediums, e.g. acrylic paint, pencil, mixed media, and made sculptures in terracotta, gas concrete and metal.  He illustrated several books and wrote poetry to accompany some of his paintings.

 

After Magadlela's death after a long illness in 2003, his friend Martins called him "One of the most astonishing painters and an amazing human being".  In the years before and after the Soweto uprising in 1976, a new generation of artists emerged, including Magdlela and Martins.  As BCM members, they broke away from the art which depicted African people in the townships as stereotypes.  Black Consciousness fostered pride in African culture.  Among the many subjects he depicted, Magdlela drew and painted African heroes heard of in oral history.  Today Magdlela is represented in many private art collections and in the collections of several art galleries and museums.

 

Ref:  Walking Tall, Without Fear - 24 South African Artists from the Struggle Era by Ifa Lethu & Dirkie Offringa

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