World-renowned visual artist and Durban University of Technology (DUT) honorary doctorate in Visual and Performing Arts recipient, Dr Esther Mahlangu will host a spectacular exhibition celebrating her remarkable contribution to contemporary art over seven decades.
Titled, ‘Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting: Esther Mahlangu, A Retrospective’, the exhibition will launch on 17 February 2024 at Cape Town’s Iziko South African National Gallery.
The exhibition will feature more than 100 artworks which have been loaned from international collections, carefully curated alongside a series of historic photographs and a short film.
The highlight of the exhibition will be the showcase of Dr Mahlangu’s iconic BMW 525i Art Car which has not been in South Africa in more than 30 years.
Dr Mahlangu decorated the 1991 BMW 525i in the traditional Ndebele art style and colours. She was the first woman and first African invited to participate in the BMW Art Car Collection in 1991.
BMW Group South Africa’s general manager for Corporate Communications, Thilosh Moodally, said the car will be on display in South Africa for a year, thereafter, it will make its way to the US and the UK.
“The BMW Art Cars are on permanent display at the BMW Museum in Munich, although this 12th Art Car has been showcased at events in Hong Kong, New York, Miami, Shanghai and at the prestigious Concorso d’Eleganza on Lake Como (in Italy), for example,” said Moodally.
Recounting how her artistic journey began, the 87-year-old Ndebele artist tells the story of being trained by her grandmother and mother in the early 1940s: “I would continue to paint on the house when they left for a break. When they came back, they would say: ‘What have you done, child? Never do that again!’ After that, I started drawing on the back of the house, and slowly my drawings got better and better until they finally asked me to come back to the front of the house. Then I knew I was good at painting.”
‘Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting: Esther Mahlangu, A Retrospective’ is curated by former DUT Art Gallery curator and head of the Curatorial, Public and Visual Cultures department at the Wits School of Arts, Nontobeko Ntombela.
She remarked: “Mahlangu’s journey is a testament to passion, innovation, and resilience. The retrospective pays homage to Esther Mahlangu’s unique approach to art, which intersects African cultures with modernity and the contemporary. The exhibition celebrates Mahlangu’s voice, agency, and pioneering spirit, symbolising her self-enunciation, self-determination and creativity.”
In 2018, Dr Mahlangu was conferred with an honorary Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Visual and Performing Arts alongside the late Dr Welcome “Bhodloza” Nzimande, Dr Sipho Mchunu and the late Dr Johnny Clegg, at the Durban University of Technology.
Dr Mahlangu received the honorary degree in recognition of her national and international reputation as an artist, and her contribution to the broader arts sector through her paintings and her promotion of the Ndebele heritage.
After its stint at the Iziko South African National Gallery, Dr Mahlangu’s exhibition will then begin its global tour, stopping first at Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa, before moving to the United States in early 2026.
Pictured: DUT Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Thandwa Mthembu with Dr Esther Mahlangu during the Spring Graduation ceremony on 07 September 2018. (Photo by DUT Audio Visual).
Andile Dube/Sthembile Ndlovu
