Sydney Kumalo
Sydney Alex Kumalo went to school in Diepkloof, Soweto. He began studying at the Polly Street Art Centre in 1952, working there under Cecil Skotnes (qv.) until 1957. In 1958 and 1959 Kumalo worked under the mentorship of the sculptor Eduardo Villa – an artistic apprenticeship which crucially honed and shaped his style and sensibility. It was Villa who introduced Kumalo to Modernist sculptors like Marino Marini and Henry Moore, as well to the African primitive strain in mid-century European modernism, and promoted the particular fusion of African reference and modernist expression which came to characterise Kumalo’s own expression. Read More…
