Somehow he knew that soon he would be dead. In 1972, a few weeks before he died, Cyprian Shilakoe said to Goodman Gallery founder Linda Givon: “I’ve come to say goodbye. I’m going to die, but do not mourn, because I will come back.” He had also told Otto Lundbohm, his teacher at the famed ELC Art and Craft Centre at Rorke’s Drift — where Shilakoe formed part of an extraordinary generation of artists, including John Muafangejo, Azaria Mbatha, Caiphus Nxumalo, Paulus Mchunu and Dan Rakgoathe — that he had been drawing a tombstone because he felt his end approaching.
It was a cruel act of fate. Shilakoe’s star was just beginning to rise. His prints had received high praise at the 1971 South African Graphic Art Exhibition that toured Belgium, Holland and West Germany. His work was selling well in South Africa, garnering Shilakoe enough money to buy a new car. It was behind the wheel of this vehicle that he found himself on September 7 1972, on the way to Soweto with his friend, artist Dan Rakgoathe, to see The Beatles film Let It Be.
In a jubilant mood over the critical and commercial success of his art, and enjoying the thrill of a cross-country drive on his new wheels, Shilakoe was moving at a frightening speed and lost control of the car. There was a disastrous series of somer-saults. Rakgoathe came away with cuts, bruises and mild concussion but, barely a month after his 26th birthday, Shilakoe was dead.
His distraught father, Lucas, said: “Cyprian came out through the front window of the car, and it jumps again on Cyprian’s head. On the 23rd September we buried Cyprian at the Doornkop Cemetery.”
So ended the life and burgeoning career of one who, it is believed, would have continued to contribute immensely to the canon of South African art. Today he would have been 60 and at the top of his game. Yet, despite his untimely passing 34 years ago, the legacy of Shilakoe continues. As he had prophesied: “I am going to leave this world, but I will be back — and you people, you are going to remember me.”
Last year, while putting together the remarkable retrospective Cyprian Mpho Shilakoe Revisited, Durban Art Gallery curator Jill Addleson was contacted by Shilakoe’s sister, Emily, who lives in the Dennilton settlement near Bronkhorstspruit. Addleson was in for a surprise: there were sculptures and drawings of Cyprian’s in the Shilakoe family home. It was a time capsule that hadn’t been opened since 1983, when both Shilakoe parents had died.
There were eight works that had not seen the light of day. Addleson regards this discovery as “the most exciting find in the history of 20th-century South African art”.
These early works form a fitting introduction to the Revisited show. They are impressive in terms of the late artist’s otherworldly vision and the sheer volume of his output. If this is what Shilakoe had achieved by the time he was 26, it boggles the mind to contemplate what heights he might have reached.
The intensity of his obsession with the spirit world and the realm of dreams is reflected in the spectral, twilit figures that haunt his aqua-tints, woodcuts, linocuts, etchings and monolithic semi-abstract wood sculptures. Though by no means depressive or morbid, Shilakoe was a natural-born existentialist possessed of the conviction that our foray into the corporeal dimension is a deeply flawed and incongruous affair.
Thus, though one generally exhorts the dead to “rest in peace,” in Shilakoe’s case, one hopes his soul remains as restless and active as it was when he dwelt on Earth.
On the road
Cyprian Mpho Shilakoe Revisited is on at the Durban Art Gallery until May 15. Thereafter it embarks on a two-year tour of the country:
Margate: Margate Art Museum, June to July
- Port Elizabeth: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum, July to September
- The University of Fort Hare: De Beers Centenary Art Gallery, September to October
- Kimberley: William Humphreys Art Gallery, November to December
- Bloemfontein: Oliewenhuis Art Gallery, February to April 2007
- Cape Town: South African National Gallery, May to June 2007
- Pietermaritzburg: Tatham Art Gallery, July to August 2007
- Johannesburg: Johannesburg Art Gallery, September to October 2007
- Newcastle: Carnegie Art Gallery, November to December 2007
- Empangeni: Teach Museum, January to March 2008