In the 1940s, Gerard Sekoto painted the streets of Sophiatown in Johannesburg and District Six in Cape Town: women carrying washing, children playing, men talking on corners and families gathered in small rooms. His colours were warm and his figures full of life. He was one of the first Black South African artists to depict urban township life with such sensitivity. In 1947, he left for Paris, hoping to develop his art. He never returned home, dying in France in 1993.
Early life and Sophiatown
Gerard Sekoto was born in 1913 at a mission station in what is now Mpumalanga. His father was a teacher and evangelist. He trained as a teacher and began painting while teaching in the 1930s. In 1938 he moved to Sophiatown, a multiracial Johannesburg suburb full of artists, musicians and writers. He painted its streets and people.
He later lived in District Six in Cape Town, another lively mixed community, and painted its life. In 1940, the Johannesburg Art Gallery bought his painting Yellow Houses, making him one of the first Black artists in its collection.
Paris, exile and music
In Pretoria’s Eastwood township, he painted some of his most famous works, including Song of the Pick. In 1947 he left for Paris. He struggled financially and worked as a pianist in nightclubs while continuing to paint. Under apartheid, he chose not to return. He continued to paint scenes of Africa from memory. Sekoto was also a musician and composer.
He spent his later years in France, where he died in 1993. He is remembered as a pioneer of South African modern art, and his works are highly valued.
A lost world and his style
Sophiatown and District Six were both destroyed under apartheid. His paintings preserve images of communities that were bulldozed. Sekoto used warm colours and expressive brushwork, capturing the rhythm of daily life rather than formal portraits. His figures often seem caught in mid-movement. Retrospectives in South Africa after the end of apartheid brought his work to new audiences who had never seen it.
Gerard Sekoto left South Africa in 1947 and never went back. The neighbourhoods he painted were demolished while he was away, which makes his canvases some of the few places where they still stand.
