SAHRA acts to save South African treasures

The South African Heritage Resource Agency recently worked at saving the country from losing some of its most precious treasures.

DECLINING EXPORT OF COPY OF THE FREEDOM CHARTER

The South African Heritage Resources Agency’s Permit Committee prohibited the export of the copy of the Freedom Charter that was signed on various dates in 1960 by the five Presidents of the following organisations:

● Chief Albert Luthuli (former President of the African National Congress)
● Mr Leon Levy (current owner of the copy and former President of the South African Congress of Trade Unions
● Dr. Monty Naiker (former President of South African National Indian Congress)
● Mr Jimmy Laguma (President of South African Coloured People’s Congress)
● Mr Pieter Beyleveld (President of the Congress of Democrats)

The reasons for declining the export of the signed copy of the Freedom Charter which is considered to be of outstanding significance are by reasons of:

• its close association with South African History.  The endorsement of the Freedom Charter by the participating organizations was not formalized by the signing of a joint document.  In the absence of such a record, the one described assumes a special significance. The signatures provide evidence, in a single record, of such endorsement; and

• is of such degree of national importance that its loss to South Africa would significantly diminish the National Heritage.

Following SAHRA’s decision, the copy of the Freedom Charter was withdrawn moments before the auction as a result of State and private interventions.  This resulted in a private sale negotiated by Lilliesleaf Trust who purchased the copy of the Freedom Charter for_______ to be preserved in State Archives, accessible to present and future generations. 
Due to its significance, SAHRA is considering declaring this copy of the Freedom Charter as a Specifically Declared Heritage Object.

DECLINING EXPORT OF “THE HARVESTERS” BY GEORGE MNYALAZA MILWA PEMBA

The South African Heritage Resources Agency’s Permit Committee prohibited the export of the “Harvesters”.

The artworks are of outstanding significance by reasons of: 

• their close association with South African history and culture.  The two oil paintings by George Pemba on a circular or ‘tondo’ format are highly unusual within his body of work as he normally used a rectangular format. 

• there being no doubt that they were intended as pendants (ie a pair of matching works). They are, furthermore, both unusual representations of the South African landscape showing labourers at work, indicating his debt to the 19th-century French Realists that he so deeply admired; these being principally Jean Francois Millet (notably his “The Gleaners” in the Louvre) and Gustave Courbet. The agrarian idyll referred to in these paintings, like those of these French predecessors, shows Pemba expressing a romantic longing for an earlier, more innocent, pre-industrial era when people worked on and possessed their own land. The parallels between the 19th-century French peasantry and indigenous South         Africans being forced to migrate to the cities are striking. In South Africa this was prior to their dispossession of the land and The passage of laws such as the Land Act of 1913 which forced them to move to the cities or the mines to seek work. Of the works painted by Pemba which express or embody these nostalgic         sentiments, these are indeed two of the finest.

• is of such degree of national importance that its loss to South Africa would significantly diminish the National Heritage.

Following SAHRA’s decision, the artwork was not sold.  SAHRA entered into negotiations with Bonhams and purchased the prohibited artworks for the amount of E7 800 (R86 348,40).  The artworks would be temporarily stored in a gallery while a decision is being made on its future. 

DECLINING EXPORT OF “LANDSCAPE” BY J.H. PIERNEEF

The South African Heritage Resources Agency’s Permit Committee has prohibited the export of the artwork, “Landscape” by Pierneef, dated c.1925 is of outstanding significance by reasons of: 

• its close association with South African History.  It belongs to a rare phase of the artist’s work when he adapted aspects of the ‘cloisonnism’, a stylistic aspect of French Post-Impressionist painting, in which bold forms and flattened areas of colour are separated by dark contours. The work of Paul Gauguin in c.1888 is but one good example of the use of this technique, which was also used by Pierneef’s Dutch modernist precursors, such as Piet Mondrian in his earliest works.

• its aesthetic qualities and its value in the study of the arts.  Pierneef’s use of this cloisonnist technique, combined with a greater sense of arbitrary colouring than is generally usual in his painting, is a marked characteristic of a short phase in his work in c.1925 of which there are only comparatively few known examples. One of these was sold at auction by Stephan Welz and Co in South Africa in the late 1980s. It is now regarded as a ‘classic’ landscape by the artist which has inspired and generated new works by several generations of younger artists (Andre Van Zyl, Wayne barker et al) for whom Pierneef has become either an icon or the subject of an art historical and ideological critique. The loss of these original works by Pierneef would therefore be an effective diminishment of a wider body of recent and contemporary South African art.

• is of such degree of national importance that its loss to South Africa would ultimately diminish the National Heritage.

This artwork was sold to a South African in South Africa.

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