Azaria Mbatha
Subtitle: retrospective exhibition, Durban Art Gallery, 14 October to 30 November 1998.
Contributors: Durban Art Gallery.
Publisher: [South Africa]; National Arts Council of South Africa; South Africa
Published: 1999
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 106
Subjects: Mbatha, Azaria, 1941- -- Exhibitions.
Genres: Exhibitions.
First sentence: Included bibliographical references.
Awards in this Library information is correct, However the contiuation and distribution of it and information in the catalogue
none is responsible for its correctness. The catalogue is nothing to purchase unless  the copyright's owner azaria mbatha had approaved that. You can be sure of information correctness if you got the catalogue during the period of  the show 1998-2000 in the museums  in South Africa. Azaria Mbatha would, and will  not sell the catalogue made 1998-2000 in the same shape
Description: The Durban Art Gallery and the owner of the copyright Azaria Mbatha, has not reprinted (published for sale) this catalogue in any way or form since the exhibition which was held since 1998-2000. (The life long reproduction of Mbatha's work in this catalogue & Essay by him) What he had written possibly have been altered on the way. What a sad and unfortunate history. The catalogue was printed to provide information to accompany the show around South Africa’s Museums and Galleries. The copies printed were meant to be distributed then. The Durban Art Gallery will receive the written  lisince from the artist if the Museum needs to reproduce more copies after the show. The owner of the copyright Azaria Mbatha take responsibility for all the copyrights and license  for reproducing his work in any form around the world. All the rights are in the hands of the artist and the catalogue will not be  sold in the present  shape. If it is a question to sell the catalogue, Azaria Mbatha (the artist) will  give a written permision contract for doing so. Communication will be  betwen the Artist and  Durban Gallery. Durban Art Gallery is a local government museum and is not a profit making institution. For further information and future of the catalogue is back to the owner of the copyright Azaria Mbatha.
ADDRESS BY DR B S NGUBANE, MINISTER OF ARTS, CULTURE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, AT THE OPENING OF THE AZARIA MBATHA EXHIBITION, THE WILLIAM HUMPHREYS ART GALLERY, KIMBERLEY, 6 SEPTEMBER 1999
Enjoyment of the arts has always given me great pleasure. Azaria Mbatha is one of the Africans that we should be proud of, and one of the artists whose work will ensure that art and its appreciation is passed from one generation to the other.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Awards
1965: Cambridge Shirt Award,  Art-South Africa-Today exhibition, urban Art Gallery, organized by the Natal Society of Arts, Durban, and the South African Institute of Race Relations, Natal Branch. 
1965-67: Two year scholarship to study art awarded by the Konstfackskolan (University College of  Arts, Craft and Design) Stockholm (Students of the collage worked for Azaria Mbatha scholarship)
He is also represented: National museum Stockholm and Malmö Museum Sweden.

1982: Prize awarded by The Pine Centre (B R Wilson-Town Ltd) for the Graphic Art print in black and white (linocut) The Royal Wedding, at the International Print Biennale, Brandford, United Kingdom
1994: Working grant awarded by the Visual Arts Fund of the Konstnämnden, Stockholm Sweden

COLLECTIONS
Afrikacentrum, Cadier en Keer, The Netherlands
Bradford Art Galleries and Museums, UK
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Museum fur Volkerkunde, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
The national Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., USA
University  of Minia, Egypt (Fine Ars Department)
National Art Gallery of Namibia
South African National Gallery, Cape Town, SA
Table of contents: title: Acknowledgements; Preface; Biography; Catalogue essays;Catalogue List; Contributors; Exhibition Tour (1998-2000).
pagenum: Reproduction of Mbatha's Work without his knowledge and pay of royalties (inclusive Retrospective Exhibition Catalogue sales); title: Jo Thorpe was a Natal Region Secretary for Race Relation in Art in South Africa. She has passed away in 1995. She later was inspired by art & craft and also actively worked to promote art & craft among all races. She became a link between all races in the country. One of her friends was Alan Paton “Save the Beloved Country 1987” Recognition of black artists in South was for the first time presented in museums and in galleries for the white public outside the country. After that, galleries could make contact via her with that ironclad political system. Through this exhibition, “Art South Africa Today 1965” and through Azaria winning the competition, Azaria’s name and that of Rorke’s Drift spread faster all over South Africa and to the art-loving public, but in a very limited move as the result of apartheid. Jo Thorpe caused a kind of revolution by promoting the name of the artist/s among those ‘ Mbatha’ not classing him using the collective term “art and craft” so his work was known in parallel to the Rorke’s Drift weaving, and for the first time was separated from the masses of handicrafts. She sold his works separately, not as handicrafts or products of the school, but as works by an individual artist. They have not yet learnt the method and understanding of art and artists in South Africa even today; art is considered as a group or ethnic thing. We really do not know about artists in that country, except the whites who helped the poor blacks from the desert of Namibia and ghettos of South Africa. Azaria Mbatha’s prints were the first artworks Thorpe sold beside handicrafts when she was starting out with just the limited resources of a small office. Since then the project has expanded. She also helped Mbatha to sell his works in various institutions and schools when he needed extra money to take his family abroad with him. Most of Mbatha’s works were sold to foreigners or visitors to the city of Durban as Jo Thorpe lives on the coast. Thorpe did not sell artworks before Mbatha’s work, only limited types of handicrafts. It is quite possible that she became inspired to handle artworks after seeing Mbatha’s work and Rorke's Drift handicrafts. It was a business by which all gained. These days, we celebrate cultural exchange and understanding between peoples. The experience of colonial and apartheid South Africa and the continued paternalistic contact with black artists in the country needs further study. Almost all artists who once visited Rorke’s Drift after Mbatha are dead, even those black students who visited private art schools in urban areas, such as Ephyraim Ngatane and several names from Rorke’s Drift such as Cyprian Shilakoe, Vuminkosi Zulu ….We ask the world to protect the culture and name of these artists and not allow people to rob them of their creativity.; title: Only Mbatha received a scholarship from the school in Stockholm (Konstfack Skolan) among all the blacks who visited Rorke’s Drift since its beginning. The students at Konstfack School also helped Azaria to sell his drawings so that his whole family could accompany him to Sweden. It was Mbatha who started textile printing at Rorke’s Drift after his studies abroad. He also began workshops for the school, and taught print-making. Among his students was John Mufangejo, whom he adores as a friend and student. With his family, Mbatha left South Africa permanently for the second time in 1969 on a one-way ticket.; title: In 1959, Thorpe was appointed as regional secretary of the South African Institute of Race Relations in Durban. During those early years of her career, she became involved in a small beadwork project and this soon led to her interest in African Art after Rorke’s Drift started. The book by Jo Thorpe: It is never too Early, African Art and Craft in KwaZulu-Natal 1960-1990 was published after her death in 1995. Mbatha’s prints were used in this book without his permission, even though he owned the copyright. They are more than a dozen works used in both the book and on the website with no permission from Mbatha.  Mbatha and Thorpe had discussed keeping some the prints aside for future use for a retrospective exhibition. Thorpe held about thirty prints from a certain period in the early creative days of artists’s. No one knows what happened to these images when Thorpe died in 1995. These prints were not returned to Mbatha after her death, nor do they have any history except for being used in the book and on the website. Since the early 60s, Thorpe printed Christmas cards from the artist’s prints. The selling of postcards made money for artists to buy materials and gain income. Seeing a book printed under Jo Thorpe’s name in which many artists’ works are used without their knowledge is very disturbing because this means the owner of the rights to print this book in future can do whatever he/she like with what is inside. No royalties were paid to the artists included in the book. Do you feel the book should continue to be sold? Something similar happened with the Azaria Mbatha retrospective Exhibition Catalogue of 1999-2000. Thorpe would not have done that from what we have learnt about her work. In reports from those artists who knew her and worked with her through many years of apartheid, she is described as a humble and good person in heart. They even published the prints in this book on an internet website called the History of South Africa without the artist’s knowledge, and it is hard to trace the author of this history of South Africa. Is it the real history of South Africa or a bluff in which a few people use material produced by poor artists for which they do not have permission? Forgetting these things is hard as they kill the artist’s soul and creativity. Imagine writing a manuscript and then finding someone else had used your work. How would you feel, especially knowing that the person had made much money out of it? The book sold well and for educational purposes in the country, which of course could have helped artists to find their way home as was their intention. Jo Thorpe would not have acted dishonestly and she did not treat any of her friends that way. But do not accept that; the law must be there to protect this group (Artists) and the group of writers. They all have no pay at the end of the month but have made a big contribution to society and for the next generation.