The cover of this book may carry the name of a single author, but in fact it’s something of an all-hands-on-deck art community effort. I am extremely grateful to all the researcher/writers who worked on and scripted a number of the artist profiles: Francis Burger, Tavish McIntosh, Bettina Malcomess, Virginia MacKenny, Michael Smith, Kim Gurney, Julie Donald, Amy Halliday, and Kathy Coates.
Thank you especially to all of the artists who agreed to be in the book.
To all of the galleries and museums both in South Africa and other countries who found images for the book, my gratitude is due. In particular I would like to thank Wendy MacDonald, Neil Dundas, Linda Givon, Emma Bedford, Julienne Lamb, Storm Jansen van Rensburg, Liza Essers, Monna Mokeona, Chantal Louw, Yvette Dunn, Sophie Perryer, Michael Stevenson, Joost Bosland, Caroline Dowling, Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels, Warren Siebrits, Clive Kellner, Jeannine Howse, David Brodie, Pam Warne, Joe Dolby, and Hayden Proud. And thank you to the Bruce Campbell Smith Collection, the Gerard Sekoto Foundation, the Dumile Feni Foundation, and the Ernest Cole Foundation for giving their permissions.
To Nadine Gordimer, Okwui Enwezor, and RoseLee Goldberg, whose erudite and insightful contributions add an essential framing and context to the artist profiles, I am most grateful, as I am to Elton John, for his generous words of introduction.
To my assistant Natasha Norman, who has been invaluable: a paragon of patience and diligence, thank you so much.
To the HarperCollins team in New York: Collins Design publisher Marta Schooler, editor Dinah Fried, production editor Lelia Mander, production director Roni Axelrod, and art directors Ilana Anger and Agnieszka Stachowicz have been pivotal in supporting this project and marshalling their considerable expertise to steer this book to completion.
Joe Marianek, thank you for your beautiful design. And in South Africa my long time editors, Bridget Impey and Russell Martin, now with Jacana Media, have always been there to offer solid advice. My New York agent Sarah Lazin, with her comforting wealth of knowledge, has reassured me in anxious moments.
To Reena Jana, the freelance editor appointed by HarperCollins to work with my text, I owe an enormous debt. You were key in shaping this book. Your probing questions, detailed suggestions, and thoughtful rewrites bridged the gap between my country and yours.
To my family, who put up with a full year of distracted inattention, I am back in the world.
And to Judith Regan, publisher of the former ReganBooks, then an imprint of HarperCollins, wherever you are now, thank you for thinking it would be exactly the right moment to produce a “gorgeously photographed” new book about the extraordinarily vital world of South African art, and for sending me an e-mail.