Bernard Gcwensa and Ruben Xulu: Christian artists of Natal by Cormick, Dina
Scarce
Bernard Gcwensa and Ruben Xulu: Christian artists of Natal by Cormick, Dina
Softcover, ISBN 9780868744575
Publisher: Academica, 1993
Used - Very Good+. Book in a beautiful condition.
Ruben Xulu, born deaf on 10 May 1952 and attended school in Mgangatho from 1955 to 1961. He began carving with Bernard Gcwensa at Hiabisa mission station and embarked on a life-long career of producing religious sculptures for missions in Natal. Unlike Gcwensa, who because of ill-health worked solely in wood, Xulu produced sculpture in both stone and wood. Xulu remained at Hlabisa until 1970.
His major works produced for the mission church Malusi Omuhle at Hlabisa include a stone baptistry, crucifix and stone bas reliefs set into a curved wall which he integrated into a cohesive unit with line drawings. In 1970 Xulu accompanied the Canadian priest Edwin Kinch when he moved to St Lucia, in Natal. He continued to carve there until 1973 when he went to Stanger. In 1975 he moved to Seven Oaks, a mission station outside Dalton near Greytown where he worked under Father Anton Maier. During this time he also worked periodically at Mariannhill under Sister Johanna Sen. He died on 15 December 1985 in Mariannhill, Natal.
Bernard Gcwensa was born in 1918 in Pomeroy, Natal. Gcwensa received three years of primary school education ”” from 1932 to 1935 ”” at Collies School in Tugela near Pomeroy in the Msinga area. He did not receive any formal art training. Edwin Kinch, a Canadian Servite priest, stationed at that time at Hiabisa, admired Gcwensa's carved walking sticks during a visit to his kraal and commissioned him to produce a carved Madonna. This marked the beginning of a lifelong career of commissioned ecclesiastical work. From 1953 to 1970 Gcwensa was employed at Hiabisa in Natal producing objects for the Roman Catholic mission church, Malusi Omuhle. His major works produced for the church include nine doors with thirty-six carved relief panels, a three metre high crucifix and fourteen statuettes of the Stations of the Cross. In 1973 and 1974 he worked at Hammarsdale in Natal and from 1975 to 1978 at Inkomana Abbey, Vryheid, where he produced amongst other objects crucifixes and a carved relief triptych of the Nativity, Crucifixion and Resurrection. In 1978 he returned to his home in Hiabisa. Gcwensa's work was included in exhibitions at Mariannhill. As he suffered from asthma most of his life, Gcwensa was unable to work in stone. He frequently used tamboti and jacaranda wood. He died of tuberculosis in 1984 in Hiabisa, Natal.