wearing blanket, unrecorded Ndebele artist

Exhibition Label:
"Roots and Journeys: Encountering Global Arts and Cultures," Jun-2013, Cassandra Mesick
In the late 1800s, British colonizers forcibly displaced many Ndebele communities from their lands in South Africa’s Transvaal region and resettled them on nearby European-run farms, where they worked as indentured laborers. Divested of their native architectural traditions, Ndebele women pioneered a new practice: painting their prefabricated houses with vibrant murals that make skillful use of line, color, and contrast. The intricate beadwork embellishing this wool blanket and delicate nyoga - both worn for the first time on a young woman’s wedding day -draw from this new tradition. The soothing palette of blue, green, and violet punctuated by inky black and crisp white echoes the particular color scheme of the wearer’s painted house. The architectural reference is furthered by the thick beaded panels on the blanket, which feature stylized concrete facades of newer Ndebele homes.

Exhibition Label:
"For Life's Sake: Arts from Africa," Oct-1983, Reinhild Kauenhoven Janzen
At the time of her marriage, the Ndebele woman wears, for the first time, a splendidly beaded blanket. The colors are chosen to harmonize with those of her house. The blanket is usually folded along one of its long sides, then draped under the one arm and pinned at the other shoulder, so that the stripes which border the short sides fall together. Beaded blankets can weigh as much as ten pounds and require regal bearing of the wearer.

Incorporated into the bold geometric patterns are repeated sylized motifs of houses with door, windows, and electric lights. This blanket features the house-and-walled-compound motif, complete with electric light fixtures, in the center of the two top beaded panels, and as a repeat pattern on the more narrow bottom panel.