Although trained as an art historian with several degrees and a PhD in African Art, Rayda Becker has spent the last twenty years working as a curator; initially at the Gertrude Posel Art Gallery at the University of the Witwatersrand and more recently as Curator of Artworks for the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa. She was also an Associate Professor in the Department of History of Art and Fine Arts at UNISA. She publishes regularly on South African art and craft.
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Joseph Dolby obtained his BA (Fine Art) degree from the University of Cape Town, followed by a Post-Graduate Diploma in Printmaking. He also studied printmaking at the Central School of Art in London under Peter Nel. After obtaining the HDE (Secondary) Diploma from the University of Cape Town, he taught at a secondary school in Cape Town. Since 1980 he has been the Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town.
Mzuzile Mduduzi Xakaza studied at the University of Fort Hare for a BA Fine Arts degree and a Higher Diploma in Education, followed by a BA Honours degree in Fine Art from UNISA. He was recently awarded his MA in Fine Arts for a dissertation on the work of Vuminkosi Zulu. Besides being a practising artist he has contributed essays to a number of catalogues and has presented papers at a number of conferences, such as that of the SA Association of Art Historians and the SA Museums Association. He is active on many art-related committees in KwaZulu-Natal and is presently the Education Officer at the Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermaritzburg.
Elza Miles is a notable researcher and writer in the field of black art and artists in South Africa, with exhibitions and publications on Ernest Mancoba, Gladys Mgudlandlu, Selby Mvusi to her credit. She has curated a major exhibition entitled Land and Lives: A story of early Black Artists, along with a major publication of the same title in 1997. She holds a doctorate in History of Art from the Rand Afrikaans University on the work of Maggie Laubser. She has been active as a researcher-in-residence at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Her book on Ernest Mancoba, Lifeline out of Africa, won the Old Mutual Literary Award in 1996. Her most recent publication is Polly Street: The Story of an Art Centre (2004).
Gabi Ngcobo is an Assistant Curator at Iziko South African National Gallery. She was born in Durban and holds a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Durban Westville, awarded in 1995. She is a practising artist and a founder member of a collective of Durban-born artists called 3rd Eye Vision. She has exhibited widely and attended artists in residence programmes and workshops locally and abroad. She serves on various decision-making committees within the visual arts including VANSA (Visual Arts Network of South Africa), the Cape Town Memory Project and the Association for Visual Arts (AVA).
Mario Pissarra is an independent arts writer and educator. He has lectured in canonical and modern African art at the Universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch, and is a former director of the Community Arts Project. He is the co-author (with Arlene Brown) of Art & Design for Everyone, a text book for grade 10 (Juta, forthcoming); and has contributed to numerous print and on-line publications including Third Text, Contemporary Africa Database and Art South Africa. He has also curated a series of exhibitions for Old Mutual Asset Managers. He recently founded the Africa South Art Initiative (ASAI) www.asai.co.za
Ivor Powell studied Art History at the University of Cape Town and Witwatersrand University, later lecturing between the late 1970s and the mid 1980s at Wits University and UNISA, before lurching into journalism and professional art criticism with, amongst others, the Weekly Mail, Vrye Weekblad and the Sunday Times. He has written widely on South African art and politics. He currently works as a senior investigator with the Directorate of Special Operations.
Originally from Zimbabwe, Hayden Proud studied for a BA Fine Arts degree and a Higher Diploma in Education at the University of Cape Town. This was followed by a BA Honours in Art History at UNISA and an MA at the University of London’s Courtauld Institute of Art, where he wrote his dissertation on the representation of same-sex couples in a French Moralised Bible of the 13th century. He taught Art History at UCT for some years and is now Curator of Historical Art Collections at Iziko Museums of Cape Town. Besides his responsibilities for the Michaelis Collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings, he has been the curator of a number of important exhibitions, including the George Pemba Retrospective in 1996.
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