Art Against Apartheid

This remarkable assembly of works is perhaps South Africa’s single most valuable international art collection.

In the 1980s, at the height of sanctions and the cultural boycott, a France-based association called Artists of the World Against Apartheid launched a global appeal to artists to contribute to a collection of anti-apartheid works. Ernest Pignon-Ernest of France and Antonio Saura of Spain worked unselfishly for two years to make it happen.

Assisted by the United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid, the result was a magnificent collection from many of the world’s leading artists of the 1970s and 1980s, valued at more than R13 million.

The Art Contre/Art Against Apartheid exhibition at the Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques in Paris opened in November 1983. The intention was that the exhibition be held in trust and given to the people of South Africa on the achievement of ‘the first free and democratic government by universal suffrage’ to ‘form the basis of a future museum against apartheid’.

Following the advent of democracy in April 1994, the collection was relocated to the Mayibuye Centre on the recommendation of then president Nelson Mandela.

The Art Against Apartheid Collection has no precedent. Never before has a national collection been created around the ideal of a democratic principle. Neither has a gift of such value been offered by so many and with such empathy. And never has a national collection been seen by millions before it was seen by its rightful owners, the people of South Africa.

The collection, comprising works by 80 artists, also consists of text contributions by internationally acclaimed poets, writers and philosophers. It has been exhibited in more than 40 cities worldwide.

The collection was displayed in Parliament from 1996, after the removal of many old apartheid art works and portraits. Today it is carefully stored, pending a decision on its further public display in South Africa.