Rorke's Drift

the long version

This is the story of Rorke's Drift, the famous art and craft centre which from the 1960s to the 1980s played a key role in South African art and nurtured a range of outstanding black artists. Central to this story is printmaking and its rich discourses. The Evangelical Lutheran Art and Craft Centre at Rorke's Drift, as one of the very few places that offered training to black artists during the years of apartheid, played a key role in South African art, not only for those who studied there, but the many others whom they trained or influenced in turn. Yet the history of the Centre has not been researched and recorded in any detail, and a relatively small group of the artists are known. Drawing on a wide range of interviews with participants in the Rorke's Drift project, not only from South Africa, but also Sweden, the Netherlands, Britain and the USA, this book sets out to write the story of the beginnings of the Centre in the 1960s, the founding and development of the Fine Art School in 1968, and the contribution of teachers and students until its closure in 1982. In addition to the main narrative, a catalogue has been compiled of the names of each of the more than eighty artists associated with the project, with a brief biography. Amongst the many subjects taught, printmaking was the strongest area of production, in part because of its economic possibilities, but also because of its particular potential to carry socio-political messages. This book examines many examples of prints made at the Centre, demonstrating their remarkable variety in linocuts, etchings and screenprints, which challenges the stereotype associated with the School. It also explores how printmaking at Rorke's Drift created a language of empowerment for its students and ultimately for the wider art world in South Africa.