Lionel Smit (born 22 October 1982, Pretoria, South Africa) is a South African artist, [1] [2] [3] known for his contemporary portraiture executed through large canvases and sculptures. [4]
Smit lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa, but is also represented internationally in London. [5] His work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London where it received the Viewer's Choice Award, [6] He received a Ministerial Award from the South African Department of Culture in 2013 [7] for Visual Art.
Born in 1982 in Pretoria, South Africa, Smit was exposed to sculpture through his father Anton Smit, [8] who worked from his studio adjacent to the family home. This studio played a central role in Lionel's upbringing. [9] By age twelve, Smit was already working in clay and considered himself primarily as a sculptor. At sixteen his parents separated, after which Lionel, a student at Pretoria's Pro Arte School of Arts at the time, began to use the empty studio space his father occupied for painting.
Lionel Smit's art is defined by a relationship between sculpture and painting. [10]
Smit is based in Strand, South Africa. [11] He has achieved international success including sell-out exhibitions in London [12] [13] and Hong Kong.
Lionel Smit has also enjoyed success in his home country of South Africa, where his work has featured in local publications such as Elle South Africa [14] and Elle Decoration. [15]
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
Buysile "Billy" Mandindi (1967–2005) was a black South African activist-artist who participated in a landmark protest in Cape Town in 1989, the so-called Purple Rain Protest. Later, still covered with the purple dye that riot police sprayed on protesters, Mandindi created a linocut celebrating the spirit of freedom.
Judith Mason born Judith Seelander Menge was a South African artist who worked in oil, pencil, printmaking and mixed media. Her work is rich in symbolism and mythology, displaying a rare technical virtuosity.
Paul Emsley is a British artist who worked in South Africa until 1996 and is now resident in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, England. He is a former lecturer at the Stellenbosch University and the 2007 winner of the BP Portrait Award for portrait painting. His work can be found in most public collections in South Africa, The National Portrait Gallery London and The British Museum. He is known for his large detailed images of people, animals and flowers. There was a major retrospective of his work in 2012 at the Sasol Art Gallery in Stellenbosch. He is represented in the UK by the Redfern Gallery and in South Africa by Everard Read. Emsley's portrait of the Princess of Wales is on permanent display at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Other notable portraits include Nelson Mandela, Sir V. S. Naipaul, Michael Simpson and William Kentridge.
Hermann Niebuhr is a South African artist who lives in De Rust. He utilizes oils on canvas in a classical painterly style to document urban decay as well as rural landscapes.
Tyrone Appollis is a South African artist and poet.
Peter Clarke was a South African visual artist working across a broad spectrum of media. He was also a writer and poet.
Matthew Hindley is a South African painter. He graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town in 2002, where he was awarded the Michaelis Prize.
Maria Magdalena Laubser was a South African painter and printmaker. She is generally considered, along with Irma Stern, to be responsible for the introduction of Expressionism to South Africa. Her work was initially met with derision by critics but has gained wide acceptance, and now she is regarded as an exemplary and quintessentially South African artist.
Tom Cullberg is an artist born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972. He currently lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.
Christo Coetzee was a South African assemblage and Neo-Baroque artist closely associated with the avant-garde art movements of Europe and Japan during the 1950s and 1960s. Under the influence of art theorist Michel Tapié, art dealer Rodolphe Stadler and art collector and photographer Anthony Denney, as well as the Gutai group of Japan, he developed his oeuvre alongside those of artists strongly influenced by Tapié's Un Art Autre (1952), such as Georges Mathieu, Alfred Wols, Jean Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier, Hans Hartung, Pierre Soulages, Antoni Tàpies and Lucio Fontana.
Cedric Nunn is a South African photographer best known for his photography depicting the country before and after the end of apartheid.
Charles Ernest Peers was a South African artist.
Nel Erasmus is a South African artist, and is considered one of South Africa's earliest abstract artists.
Deborah Bell is a South African painter and sculptor whose works are known internationally.
Wayne Barker, South African visual artist. Barker is based in Johannesburg. He rose to prominence in the late 80s, at the height of political unrest under the Apartheid regime. His work has featured in several global biennales, art fairs and important retrospective exhibitions. He works in various mediums, including but not limited to painting, printmaking, sculpture, video, performance and installation. In addition to collaborations with other artists, Barker has collaborated with the Qubeka Beadwork Studio based in Cape Town, to realise large scale glass beadworks.
Carl Walter Meyer was a South African artist born in Aliwal North, Eastern Cape. Meyer graduated from the University of Pretoria with a degree in Fine Art. He furthered his studies at the "Staatliche Kunstakademie” in Düsseldorf, Western Germany, under professor Michael Buthe. He was living in Upington, Northern Cape at the time of his death.
Adriaan Hermanus Diedericks is a South African artist. He is known. for his contemporary bronze sculptures.
Mmakgabo Mmapula Mmangankato Helen Sebidi is a South African artist born in Marapyane (Skilpadfontein) near Hammanskraal, Pretoria, who lives and works in Johannesburg. Sebidi's work has been represented in private and public collections, including at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington and New York, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, New York, and the World Bank. Her work has been recognised internationally and locally. In 1989, she won the Standard Bank Young Artist award, becoming the first black woman to win the award. In 2004, President Thabo Mbeki awarded her the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver – which is the highest honor given to those considered a "national treasure". In 2011, she was awarded the Arts and Culture Trust (ACT) Lifetime Achievement Award for Visual Art, while in 2015 she received the Mbokodo Award. In September 2018, Sebidi was honoured with one of the first solo presentations at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town – a retrospective entitled Batlhaping Ba Re.
Stefan Smit, is a contemporary South African fine artist.
Anton Sydney Smit is a contemporary South African sculptor. He is known for his large-scale sculptures and public art exhibitions. He is the father of South African Artist, Lionel Smit.