Simon Mnguni
Like Arthur Butelezi (qv.), Simoni Mnguni’s work belongs to an earlier period, and he was one of the first black South Africans to work seriously as a painter. He adopted watercolour, that most English and most accessible of painting mediums. In 19th-century England, watercolour painting had become a popular and polite accomplishment. Its portability ensured that the medium was taken up in the British colonies, one of which was the Natal Colony, and it was used by all the colonial traveller artists in South Africa. Mnguni’s true date of birth is uncertain as there are widely-divergent records; the Africana Museum catalogue has noted him as being born in 1866, while in the catalogue of The Neglected Tradition (published in 1988), Steven Sack cites 1885 as his birth date. There is other evidence that suggests he may have even been born as early as 1864. Read More…
