David Mbele

David Mbele was born in Johannesburg in 1942. From an early age he developed an interest in art and sketched all aspects of township life around him. He spent his time after school copying cartoons from the newspapers.

In 1958 he attended art classes at the Jubilee Art Center under Cecil Skotnes.

In 1959 he was encouraged to join the art class at Polly Street Center.

His paintings have proved to be immensely popular because they have certain qualities which appeal to the general public, for example, their atmosphere and the feeling of pathos and piety in some of them.

Mbele's work belongs to the genre of township art. The subject matter of his paintings is the life of the Black man in the cities, portrayed with individual figures or groups of figures. They are shown going about their everyday activities, for example reading a newspaper, selling and delivering milk, running errands, or enjoying a drink.

His figures are bold and big. He makes very little attempt at including finer detail in his pictures and he creates the human figure mainly through big circular and curvilinear forms. There is a considerable amount of bodily distortion in these figures, which at times contributes to the success with which he manages to express particular emotions or moods.

Mbele is a graphic artist producing etchings and linocuts. He works mainly in pastels, chalks and he prefers earthy colours such as shades of brown, ochre and yellow, with black, white and grey for emphasis.

His work was reproduced on the cover of "South African Contemporary Artists" in 1980 and the cover of "Contrast 51" in 1982.

He has participated in several group exhibitions from 1960 in South Africa, West Germany, Italy, the USA, Spain and France. In 1961 he had his first of four solo exhibitions at the Adler Fielding Gallery in Johannesburg.

David's works have been highly acclaimed in Atlanta, Georgia, USA where he exhibited in 1989.

Exhibitions :

Group exhibitions from 1967 up until 1980

1981 : Black Art Today Exhibition, Standard Bank Soweto

1979 : Contemporary African Art in SA (touring)

1975 : National Art Museum Botswana

1972 : Goodman Gallery solo exhibition

1987 : "African Art Images" - Natalie Knight, Hyde Park

1970 : Solo exhibition,University of Fort Hare

1961 : Solo exhibition,Adler Fielding Gallery (Johannesburg)