Description
Gerard Sekoto
Jan Gerard Sekoto, born in Botshabelo in the Eastern Transvaal (now Bophuthatswana), was a pioneering South African artist and jazz musician known for his influence on urban Black art and modernism. His paintings portrayed township life and tensions, including neighbourhoods later demolished. After studying at Grace Dieu and teaching, he began his professional career in Johannesburg in 1939, encouraged to paint in oils by Judith Gluckman and Alexis Preller.
He moved to Paris in 1947 as apartheid deepened, working as an artist and jazz pianist; he never returned to South Africa but continued exploring earlier and new subjects. Research by Barbara Lindop helped bring wider recognition to his work. Sekoto received the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and, posthumously, South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga (Gold) in 2003. His work is held by major institutions in South Africa and elsewhere.
