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Gerard Sekoto (1913 – 1993)

Gerard Sekoto was born at the Lutheran Mission Station of Botshabelo near Middelburg in the Eastern Transvaal on 9 December 1913.

When he was five, his father, a teacher, was transferred to a mission school on a farm called ‘Wonderhoek‘.

The young Sekoto’s first love was music, and his father bought him a harmonium. He subsequently learned to read music and compose his own tunes.

Although there were no drawings or paintings around him as a child, he started drawing on his brother’s slate, and later at school, with pencil on paper. He had no idea what ‘art’ was but drew people, buildings and animals.

Gerard Sekoto went to study at the Diocesan College in 1930 to become a teacher like his father.

After qualifying in 1934 he taught at Khaiso Secondary School in Pietersburg.

Born on September 9, in Botshabelo, a mission station in the Transvaal of South Africa, Gerard Sekoto became known as the father of South African art.

Sekoto’s artistic abilities expressed in drawing and sculpting evolved to watercolour painting. He would draw and paint late into the night by candlelight. After h