First Stein-Lessing art bursaries awarded at tribute book launch
- By Wits University
Head of Wits School of Arts Professor Georges Pfruender named the first recipients of the Maria Stein-Lessing bursary for postgraduate studies in the history of art at a function at Museum Africa, Johannesburg, on 13 January 2011, where a concurrent Stein-Lessing exhibition, l’Afrique, was curated and the book, A Tribute to Maria Stein-Lessing and Leopold Spiegel: l’Afrique was launched.
Bursars Portia Malatjie and Justine Wintjes are completing history of art Masters and PhD degrees respectively at Wits University.
One of the first black women to complete an art history Masters at Wits, Malatjie’s research report applies black feminist theory to selected works of South African artists Tracey Rose (BA (FA) 1997, MA (FA) 2007) and Berni Searle. “While there is a lack of feminism in South African art historical writings, black feminism is almost non-existent,” explains Malatjie (BA (FA) 2008). “The bursary allowed me to concentrate on a new perspective in interpreting Rose and Searle’s works.”
Wintjies’s PhD explores the possibility of digital ‘restoration’ of rock art in the Drakensberg. “I will endeavour to live up to the…legacy of Maria Stein-Lessing by making a meaningful contribution to art historical scholarship in South Africa, where much remains to be (re-)written around African artistic practices, what happens when we attempt to study them and why this is significant for challenging dominant systems of thought”, comments Wintjies.
The l’Afrique legacy
Since 29 May 2009, the l’Afrique exhibition has displayed African artefacts collected by iconic and influential former Wits University lecturer, Maria Stein-Lessing (1905–1961) and her husband, Leopold Spiegel (1912–2006), whose bequest enabled the bursaries and endowment of the Spiegel/Stein-Lessing Wing for African Art at Museum Africa.
Exhibition co-curator Nessa Leibhammer (BA (FA) 1991, MA 2001) explained at the launch that the exhibition and book title, l’Afrique, celebrates the little shop by that name that Stein-Lessing opened in Johannesburg in 1946, one of South Africa’s first shops to market African art.
“A gem of a book”
One of Stein-Lessing’s first students Esmé Berman (BA (FA) 1950), who established a memorial for her mentor at Wits in 1965, writes in the book of her weekly visits to l’Afrique for tutorial briefings, and of the “inspiring and extraordinarily knowledgeable teacher” that Stein-Lessing was.
The late Cecil Skotnes (BA 1951, honorary LLD 1996), whose art appears in the book, recalls l’Afrique as the only place in Johannesburg where he could see and talk about African art.
Exhibition co-curator and book editor Natalie Knight (LLB 1958, BA 1975) writes in the book’s introduction, “Maria Stein-Lessing and Leopold Spiegel… combined their skills to produce an important legacy in the field of African and South African art and artefacts. Through the memories of people closest to them, we have compiled portraits of this extraordinary couple.”
Former Wits lecturer and later director of London’s Courtauld Institute of Art, Eric Fernie (BA (FA) 1950) writes in the foreword: “There is no greater gift a teacher can give you than that spark of intellectual desire…I owe [that] debt to Maria Stein-Lessing.”
Fernie passed the book on to former classmate and now artist and urban design lecturer, Arlene Segal (MUD 1981), who wrote, “l’Afrique is a gem of a book … Maria Stein-Lessing and Leopold Spiegel arriving from Europe were prescient in understanding the relevance of the art objects they discovered locally.”