Selection - FHYA curation of selected materials from the Traditional Collection at the Johannesburg Art Gallery

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA using materials provided by Nessa Leibhammer, 2018: The FHYA selection from the Traditional Collection at the Johannesburg Art Gallery was made by Nessa Leibhammer. She selected objects from the Traditional Collections that came from the FHYA target area of KwaZulu-Natal and immediately adjacent regions which she identified as probably dating to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The Traditional Collections were inaugurated by Christopher Till (head of the gallery 1983-1991) and in 1987, the gallery began acquiring material culture exclusively from the southern African region for this collection. The Traditional Collection comprises some 2500 mostly wooden and beadwork items, dating from the mid-19th century to the late 20th century. It includes accoutrements of daily use, as well as objects of a ceremonial, prestige or chiefly nature. It also includes beadwork worn by men, women, and children; bracelets; bangles; capes; shawls; skirts; headgear; and waistcoats. Objects of domestic use in the collection include ceramic vessels, carved wooden milk pails, spoons and platters, woven fibre baskets and reed and grass mats. JAG does not collect weapons or archaeological material unless they manifest what curators consider a high aesthetic standard. The gallery seeks particularly to acquire objects that manifest anthropomorphic or zoomorphic attributes as these align themselves with western sculptural genres - animated by the presence of a ‘being’ - be it human or animal. These are features that attempt to bring the collection closer to Fine Art and away from the topological, ethnographic mode which values multiple assemblies of a single type without a concern for aesthetics. Thus the gallery does not collect multiple samples of the same type of object since its focus, in line with an ‘art’ genre, is the single unique object. These carefully considered selections, exclusions and inclusions, have shaped the nature of what is considered ‘traditional’ at JAG. The first set of objects purchased by JAG was a collection of 114 headrests, part of a larger collection assembled by the Suisse Romande missionary, Reverend A. A. Jaques. These objects came mainly from the southern Mozambique region, as well as what was known as the eastern and north-eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga and Limpopo Provinces) and were purchased in 1987. Also in 1987, JAG’s holdings of southern African material culture were further augmented when the Brenthurst Collection, containing 862 items of southern African art, was placed on long-term loan at the institution. In 1992, the Horstmann Collection, totalling 93 objects, was acquired. In 2013, the JAG purchased 138 nineteenth- and early twentieth-century pieces from Professor Nicholas Maritz. These objects were classified by Maritz as ‘Northern Nguni’. Much of the Maritz collection was assembled by Jonathan Lowen in England and Europe, as was the entirety of the Brenthurst Collection.]