The second in a series looking around our home at the paintings and objects we have picked up over the years, not because they are of any particular value other than that we enjoy them.

Jesus and His Disciples, Karakul wool, 165cm x 106 cm, Beatrice Zwane 1988 (est)

We bought this large tapestry in South Africa in 2002. All that we knew about the artist was that her name was Beatrice Zwane and that the weaving had been created at the Evangelical Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre in Rorke’s Drift, South Africa, a place where a battle between British forces and Zulu warriors had taken place in 1879.

The tapestry has hung in our homes over twenty-two years, first in Montreal as seen in the photograph below, then in Arizona and later in Ohio.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre at Rorke’s Drift, Natal, was established in 1962 and had a significant impact on the development of South African art and craft in the 1960s and 1970s. The Centre, a result of a unique and successful venture in cross-cultural art and craft production, combined Swedish technical assistance with traditional African design and skill. Yet, when the works by marginalized women artists in Africa were exhibited at the National Museum in Stockholm in 1970, they were dismissed as the fruits of Swedish cultural imperialism and naive artistic minds. The woven tapestries are now little known in South Africa and largely forgotten in Sweden. It is not surprising, then, that I wasn’t able to find any substantive information about Beatrice Zwane on the internet.

The above image of an attachment to the back of Zwane’s tapestry tells one as much as there is to know about this or any other of her works.

In the following photograph of the tapestry hanging in our Arizona home several years ago, there is a strange coincidence:

The blurry image in a black frame to the left of the tapestry is the work of another artist who studied at the Rorke’s Drift Art and Craft Center, George Msimang.

Untitled ink & charcoal, George Msimang, circa 1965

George Msimang was born in Durban, South Africa in 1948. Like Beatrice Zwane, he studied at the Evangelical Lutheran Art and Craft Centre, Rorke’s Drift. Afterwards, he was offered a study grant by the Italian government. He went to Rome twice, once to the Accademia di Belle Arti where he spent a period from 1971 to 1975 and another year in 1986 at the Accademia di Belle Arte, Perugia. His work challenged the social and economic imbalances in the Apartheid system. He died of pneumonia at age fifty-six.

Thanks to the Art and Craft Center at Rorke’s Drift, both George and Beatrice were given the opportunity to develop and express their artistic talent when South Africa’s education policies under Apartheid denied them the opportunity to advance their craft. It is debatable whether or not their talent is appreciated to the extent that it should be. Certainly, neither artist would be able to earn a living wage if one looks at current valuations of their work. But we are grateful.