Ezrom Legae (1938–1999) was a South African

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

and draughtsman. Born in Vrededorp,

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

, Legae studied at the Polly Street Art Centre beginning in 1959; from 1960 until 1964 he attended the Jubilee Art Centre and worked with

Cecil Skotnes Cecil Skotnes (1 June 1926 – 4 April 2009) was a prominent South African artist. He was born in East London in 1926, studied drawing in Florence, Italy, the Witwatersrand Technical Art School and then the University of the Witwatersrand. ...

and Sydney Khumalo. In 1965 he became a teacher, subsequently becoming codirector of the Jubilee Art Centre. In 1970 he received a

scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholars ...

that allowed him to travel to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

; between 1972 and 1974 he was director of the African Music and Drama Association Art Project. Legae worked full-time as an artist; he lived in

Soweto Soweto () is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western Townships''. Formerly a s ...

with his family until his death. Legae is best known for his powerful visual commentaries on the pathos and degradation of apartheid - a critique he extended to the persistence of poverty and racism in the post-apartheid years. He excelled as painter and sculptor of figures, heads and animals working with oil, conté, bronze, clay and mixed media.

References

Bio at the National Museum of African Art
* 1938 births 1999 deaths South African sculptors South African contemporary artists People from Johannesburg 20th-century sculptors {{SouthAfrica-artist-stub