The colours are vivid, the lines simply drawn, a strangely idealised version of what Nelson Mandela saw — or wished to see — through the bars of the tiny cell where he spent 27 years for resisting South Africa’s apartheid regime.
But the man who went from political prisoner to president, militant revolutionary to Nobel peace laureate, has his own explanation for the upbeat lithographs of the notorious Robben Island prison off Cape Town.
”Today when I look at Robben Island, I see it as a celebration of the struggle and a symbol of the finest qualities of the human spirit than a monument to the brutal tyranny and oppression of apartheid,” he says in a note attending the exhibit that opened on Tuesday in New York’s Rockefeller Center.
”It is true that Robben Island was once a place of darkness, but out of that darkness has come a wonderful brightness, a light so powerful that it could not be hidden behind prison walls, held back by prison bars, or hemmed in by the surrounding sea.”
What he does not explain is why none of the 25 signed lithographs that include a church, a lighthouse, the island harbour, a prison ward, a courtyard, a guard tower and Mandela’s own cell, contain a single human figure.
Neither Anna Hunter, the owner of London Belgravia Gallery who has mounted the New York exhibit, nor Mandela’s art publisher, Ross
Calder, knew the answer. ”It’s an interesting angle. I’ll ask him,” said a bemused Calder.
They noted, however, that the chalk-and-pastel drawings are not prison art as such, but based on photographs by a cameraman who toured Robben Island with Mandela years after his release in 1990.
By that time, the prison had been turned into a popular Cape Town tourist attraction. During the tour, Mandela pointed out things of interest and the photographer recorded them. Tutored in technique by Cape Town artist Varenke Paschke, Mandela then used the photos as guides to his drawings.
It was Calder who first urged Mandela, now 84, to take up art after seeing how Yoko Ono marketed the late John Lennon’s sketches
to fund charitable causes. Proceeds of the Mandela exhibit, previously seen in South Africa, London and Australia, go to the Nelson Mandela Trust which funds Aids research and other charities.
”Reflections of Robben Island” also includes Mandela’s prison writings, a copy of his cell key and a chart he used to keep track of the time. The most dramatic item, however, is a print of his right palm, with an empty space eerily shaped like the continent of Africa.
Hunter said that happened ”entirely by accident” when Mandela placed his paint-covered hand on a piece of paper.
The ”Hand of Africa,” as it is called, can be purchased for $15,900. Lithographs range from $5,400, to $28,000 for ”The Window,” a barred window with Cape Town’s famed Table Mountain in the distance. Hunter noted that Mandela’s cell actually faced a courtyard that eventually was converted into a tennis court.
In the latter years, tennis and gardening helped ease Mandela’s boredom and his racquet is also part of the exhibit. – Sapa-AP