SOEK DIE OUWE!
op soek na Bill Hart in die Johannesburg Art Gallery
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| Please let me know where I can find a copy! |
Monday April 11th, 2011
Scurry along the side streets. The glare of the sun hits bleaks your view but still you don't look down at one week's worth of neglected garbage from the Pikitup strike.
You duck into Joubert Park and find solice in the Johannesburg Art Gallery. You are greeted by the terribly witty and charming Jo Burger, Head Librian.
Below the gallery rooms, you will find a goldmine of information all relevant to South African art history. Certainly more then the 5 books at Centraal Bibliotheek, Amsterdam -- you scoff!
This one called Polly Street, the Story of an Art Centre -- there's a book you haven't seen before. Wasn't this the formally known Jubliee Center, where Bill once worked? Surely...during the years of Apartheid?
Jo hustles the shelves and comes up with the original issues of ARTLOOK magazine. At her suggestion, you spend some time scanning...
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| ARTLOOK 18 May 1968. Registered at the GPO as a Newspaper, 30c |
Jo has now supplied you with carbon copies of every possible article with the words "Bill Hart" in it. Some of the books which linger in your memory are:
- Land & Lives, a Story of Early Black Artists by Elza Miles
- Art & Artists of South Africa by Esmé Berman
- Contemporary African Art in South Africa by EJ de Jager
- Dictionary of South African Painters & Sculptors by Cecil Skotnes
Would you have ever found these books without Jo's help??
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| outside the paradise of books reality struck |
There are plenty of other books that need your attention, but for now it's back on the streets of the smelly CBD.
Of course you don't leave without signing the guestbook, copying some of your archive files into the library computer and feeling quite proud, because:
"the Johannesburg Art Gallery now holds a file on Bill Hart"
Many hearfelt thanks to Jo Burger and the Johannesburg Art Gallery for helping us define the search for Bill Hart.
