Durant Basi Sihlali, Untitled (Two Figures Drawing), 1978

Watercolour and pencil on paper
58 by 45.5cm, 73.5 by 61 by 35cm including frame Durant Basi Sihlali (1935 – 2004) was born in Germiston, Gauteng then known as the Transvaal. Due to harsh living conditions, his parents sent him to live with his grandparents in a rural village called Cala in the Eastern Cape. The wall murals Xhosa women painted captivated Sihlali. At the age of14 he began informal art classes at the Chiawelo Art Centre. He also learned from the artists Carlo Sdoya, Sidney Goldblatt and studied with Cecil Skotnes at the Polly Street Recreation Centre from 1953 to 1958. Sihlali worked from observations of the world around him, representing realities of urban life for blacks in South Africa. From the 1960s up to the 1980s, Sihlali painted hundreds of watercolours that became his most dominant legacy. A multi-medium artist Sihlali also produced work in pencil, charcoal, pastels, oil paints and graphic media, and sculpture