Strauss & co - 9 November 2015, Johannesburg

179 Born in the KwaThema, a township southwest of Springs on the East Rand, Lucas Sithole was mentored by Cecil Skotnes at the Polly Street Art Centre in central Johannesburg. According to Skotnes the attenuated proportions of Sithole’s animal and human figures owed a significant debt to his fellow Polly Street artist, Sydney Kumalo. 1 Sithole is well known for his depictions of mythical animals. The simplicity and strength of his vertically proportioned human figures prompted art historian EJ de Jager to liken Sithole’s work to early Gothic art. 2 Proficient in clay, hard wood, stone and liquid steel, Sithole’s preferred technique was woodcarving. He started working in wood when he enrolled at Vlakfontein Technical College, where he studied carpentry, cabinet making and welding. He would travel as far as Knysna to find wood for his sculptures, paying particular attention to the wood’s form. This work is produced from wood of the Msimbithi tree ( Millettia grandis ). Common to coastal forests in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal areas, the wood of this tree is also used for poles and its bark for medicine and string. In interviews, Sithole detailed how he found the wood shortly after meeting a traditional healer, or ‘witch doctor’ as he described him in the vernacular of the time. Sithole, who moved to Spekboom in the Pongola district in 1981, did not specify the exact location of the encounter. His retelling emphasised the fearsome strangeness of his subject, whose neck and body was adorned with snakeskins. Returning home, Sithole sketched the man. Later, after partially completing his sculpture, Sithole returned to the village where the man lived to show off his work in progress. ‘He did not want to see it and threatened that I would not get away alive if I showed it to him. So I left in my truck and he never saw the sculpture.’ 3 The completed work was exhibited at Gallery 21 in Johannesburg and drew extensive coverage. 1. Miles, Elza (2004) Polly Street , Johannesburg: Ampersand Foundation. Page 70 2. de Jager, EJ. (1992) Images of Man , Alice: Fort Hare University Press. Page 120 3. Haenggi, Fernand F. (2015) Lucas Sithole: 1931–1994 Highlights , Basel. Page 118