Natale Labia Museum - Current Exhibition

Current Exhibitions - NATALE LABIA

This exhibition consists of prints and drawings bequeathed to the South African National Gallery in 1994 by the late Lily Herbstein.
Lily Herbstein was encouraged by amongst others, Gregoire Boonzaier and Leonard Marchant to concentrate on collecting prints. In doing so she managed to build up a small, but choice collection, of works by contemporary South African artists - including Boonzaier, Marchant, as well as Francois Krige and Eleanor Esmonde-White. A focussed collection of this kind ensures that the exhibition has an obviously unifying theme. In addition to the prints, Lily Herbstein also bequeathed a watercolour by Gerard Sekoto and a pen and wash drawing by Bruce Franck. The exhibition will be augmented by other works in the SANG Permanent Collection.
It is particularly appropriate that the Natale Labia Museum hosts this exhibition as Lily Herbstein was a long-term resident of Muizenberg and maintained an active and keen interest in the cultural life of the area.

This exhibition of prints, drawn from the permanent collection of the South African National Gallery, endeavours to illustrate and explain the difference between an artist's print and a reproduction. A print has been defined as "in essence a pictorial image which has been produced by a process which enables it to be multiplied. Therefore, it requires the previous design and manufacture of a printing surface; at its simplest this can be a cut potato, but the standard materials have been wood, metal or stone. These are inked and impressed on to a suitable surface, usually a sheet of paper or a closely related material such as satin or vellum; the many important applications of printing images on to textiles, ceramics or plastics have traditionally been excluded from the field of prints" (Antony Griffiths, Prints and Printmaking 1980). The use of "standard materials" is illustrated on this exhibition by a wide range of prints including woodcuts, etchings, engravings, lithographs and screenprints. The fundamental change in the status of prints in the middle of the nineteenth century, with the application of photomechanical methods of reproduction, is explored in the exhibition. The accompanying text traces the evolution of the various definitions of what constitutes an artist's print and provides a generally accepted definition which can be applied to both historical and contemporary prints. The exhibition is not entirely didactic in nature but also provides a visual feast of fine, original prints and reproductions. Works by Rembrandt, Whistler, Meryon, Villon, Braque and Picasso are included. Related activities, such as lectures and demonstrations, have been arranged to augment the exhibition.