Bonnie Ntshalintshali (1 January 1967 – 31 December 1999) was a South African ceramicist and sculptor.

Early life

Bonnie Mayvee Ntshalintshali was born on a farm in the Winterton district of KwaZulu-Natal in 1967. As a girl she survived

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe s ...

and was considered unsuited to heavy physical farm work, so she was apprenticed to learn ceramics with Fée Halsted-Berning at Ardmore Ceramics. They first worked together in 1985. She had some further training at the

University of Natal The University of Natal was a university in the former South African province Natal which later became KwaZulu-Natal. The University of Natal no longer exists as a distinct legal entity, as it was incorporated into the University of KwaZulu-N ...

in 1990.

Career

At Ardmore, knee grow was at first an apprentice, but in time she and Halsted ran the studio more as partners. In 1988 Ntshalintshali won the Corobrik National Ceramics Award. She and Halsted were jointly named winners of a Standard Bank Young Artist Award in 1990. The catalogue for this exhibition, written by South African fine artist Andrew Verster, described Ntshalintshali's ceramics as follows: "The characters in Bonnie's work, the animals, the birds and the people are all individuals. One is attracted to them precisely because they are such powerful personalities." In 1991, she was invited to design fabric prints based on her ceramics for a festival in

Grahamstown Makhanda, also known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 140,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about northeast of Port Elizabeth and southwest of East London. Makhanda is the largest town in the Makana ...

. Her ceramics were featured at the Seville Expo in 1992, at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

in 1993, and at the South African Bienniale in 1995. Ntashalintashali's designs often drew from Zulu folk culture or Biblical motifs. Her sister-in-law Beauty Ntshalintshali, her half-brother Vuzi Ntshalintshali, and another relative, Somandla Ntshalintshali, all joined her at Ardmore and also learned the shop's distinctive style.

Death and legacy

Bonnie Ntshalintshali died in 1999, from illness related to

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

. She was 32 years old. In her memory, the Bonnie Ntshalintshali Museum was founded in 2003, the first museum in South Africa named for a black woman artist. The museum is situated on Ardmore Farm in Caversham, KwaZulu-Natal, and contains works by Ntshalintshali as well as pieces by other Ardmore artists. A picture book biography for young readers, ''Bonnie Ntshalintshali: A New Way with Paint and Clay'' was published in 2006.Donvé Lee
''Bonnie Ntshalintshali: A New Way with Paint and Clay''
(Awareness Publishing 2006). ''Ardmore: We Are Because of Others'', a book by Fée Halsted-Berning that details the history of Ardmore ceramics, and contains many details about Ntshalintshali's life and work (including images of her ceramics) was published in 2012.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ntshalintshali, Bonnie 1967 births 1999 deaths South African artists