HOMAGE TO GEORGE MSIMANG

Andy Mason writes:

I was looking through some old stuff and found this amazing sketch by the late George Msimang, a gifted fine/comic artist and really funny guy who used to come by our studio from time to time to sell us sketches when he was short of cash, which was most of the time. I wish I had bought more of his work, because he’s dead now -- a true genius of the pen gone, more or less unheralded -- his work has hardly been documented or acknowledged. He’s one of many black South African cartooning talents whose ability wasn’t given the opportunity to shine, and he ended up scratching out a meagre living at the bottom end of the fine art market. This drawing entitled “Taxi jam, Clairwood” (1999) was done on A4 bond paper, straight to ink without intermediary pencil work. He was capable of churning several of these out in a day, often with a lovely watercolour wash treatment.