Figure

A South African Old Master (SA 1938 – 1999)

South African sculptor, draughtsman and painter, Ezrom Legae, created work infused with powerful social commentary on life during the apartheid years. Legae is best known as a painter and sculptor of figures, heads and animals, executed in oil, conté, mixed media, bronze and clay. Born in Vrededorp, Johannesburg in 1938, Legae studied at the Polly Street Art Centre after attending school at St. Cyprians and Madibane High School in Diepkloof, Soweto. From 1960–1964 Legae studied with Cecil Skotnes and Sydney Kumalo at the Jubilee Art Centre. In 1965 he took over Kumalo’s position as assistant to Skotnes, initially teaching and subsequently becoming co-director of the Jubilee Art Centre.

In 1970 Legae was awarded the USSALEP travel scholarship, enabling him to travel to Europe and the United States, and from 1972–1974 he was made director of the African Music and Drama Association Art Project. Legae participated in numerous international group exhibitions, including the ground-breaking Ricky Burnett exhibition Tributaries in 1985, winning both the Honourable Mention for Drawing at the Valparaiso Biennale in Chile in 1979 as well as the Oppenheimer sculpture Prize in 1969. Later he decided to leave teaching to pursue his career as a full-time artist, however, in 1980/1 he did work as a part-time instructor at the Federated Union of Black Artists (FUBA) and he was the Director of the Diepmeadow Town Council Art project until his death in 1999 at the age of 60. Legae’s work is represented internationally, in several private and in most public art collections.