Exiled SA art comes home

A Repatriated artwork by acclaimed exiled artist Dumile Feni is set to go under the hammer in Johannesburg later this month.

Aspire Art Auctions will auction Feni's charcoal drawing Children under Apartheid on July 17.

Feni died in New York in 1991.

The work, according to Aspire, was commissioned for a campaign against child abuse in the US in the late 1980s and was exhibited for some years in the UN buildings in New York City.

New York became Feni's home after he was forced into exile by the former apartheid government for his stand against the regime.

Art critic Athi Joja said: "After being exhibited in the US for some years, this important work has now been returned to South Africa."

Children under Apartheid depicts figures peering from behind jail bars.

"Suppose these are the young victims of state brutality and subjugation, caged inside apartheid's prisons - their fate murky and unpredictable," Joja said.

Narissa Ramdhani, CEO of Ifa Lethu foundation - South Africa's largest heritage repatriation organisation - said the Feni artwork was not part of the nearly 700 pieces that had been returned to the country.

Those pieces were taken out of South Africa by foreign diplomats and art collectors during the apartheid era.

"This piece is obviously part of a private collection. The artworks that have been repatriated are for the benefit of the country it was taken from," said Ramdhani.