Esther Mahlangu

Presentation

Esther Mahlangu was born in 1935 in Middelburgn Mpumalanga, South Africa, on a farm outside the town, and belongs to the Southern Ndebele people. She is the first of nine siblings, six boys and three girls. She began painting at the age of ten, under the guidance of her mother and grandmother3. It was a tradition in her homeland for women to prepare pigments and paint the outside of houses. This is how she began her artistic career, and built a local reputation, distinguishing herself both by the originality of her artistic work and her ability to inscribe this work in a tradition. She married and had several children, but only one boy reached adulthood. Her husband also died. The region was also in the midst of political and social turmoil, generated at the time by apartheid and racial segregation, coupled with population displacements, which tended to reinforce the attachment of these populations to their culture. Between 1980 and 1991, her mural painting skills earned her a position at the historic village of Botshabelo, an open-air museum dedicated to Ndebele culture.