A shared lens on labour: Gerard Sekoto and Lena Hugo in dialogue

Daily Maverick

16-05-2025

An exhibition of Lena Hugo and Gerard Sekoto's art captures the life of labour.
Figures appearing at the car window imploring the occupants to buy Chinese sunglasses, multicoloured feather dusters, belts and silver balloons that dance in the hot sun. Sound familiar?
An old man trying to direct the traffic when the lights have failed, a street juggler hoping for a small token of appreciation, road workers digging, their sweat glistening.
You could say it's a slice of urban life, not particularly significant, not particularly noteworthy.
Yet, for Gerard Sekoto, early 20th-century artist, profound thinker and recently the face of the Paris Noir exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, it was this sort of snapshot that dictated his choice of subject throughout his life.
The same could be said of contemporary South African artist Lena Hugo, whose childhood was dominated by the mine-heaped landscape of Roodepoort, with its politically charged atmosphere of the time – factors, she says, that strongly influenced her creative direction.
While she and Sekoto couldn't be more different in background and age, their deep commitment to representing work and labour in the past century is uncannily similar.
It is this double-etched narrative that is featured in an exhibition hosted by Strauss & Co in Johannesburg, entitled Working Life in South Africa: Gerard Sekoto & Lena Hugo, running until the end of May.
Curator Wilhelm van Rensburg, a senior art specialist and head curator at Strauss & Co, reiterates that the aim of the exhibition is to demonstrate through selected paintings the strong synergy between the artists.
'In the work of Gerard Sekoto, we see nannies, washerwomen, brickmakers, coal merchants, miners, barbers, shopkeepers, street photographers, water drawers, endeavours that typified the world that workers created for themselves in the first half of the 20th century.
'Juxtaposed with Sekoto's paintings are depictions of workers by Lena Hugo, mainly of heavy machinery operators, in the working life of the 21st century.'
Commenting on the exhibition, art writer, photographer and curator Nkgopoleng Moloi says Sekoto and Hugo's practices make visible the social structures that shape labour.
'Read together, they highlight the ways in which workers are portrayed but also how their experiences are understood and remembered. In this sense, they offer a form of social realism that insists on the visibility of labour and the dignity of those who perform it.'
Among the paintings on show for this exhibition is Sekoto's iconic political composition Song of the Pick, which focuses on the often back-breaking work undertaken by labourers. Van Rensburg describes Sekoto's painting as a classic example of his artistic exploration of the relationship between the economically powerful and the vulnerable.
'He achieved this using a direct, concrete approach based on what countless people had either experienced or witnessed.
'Although [it was] painted in 1942, one could say that little has changed since the ushering in of the democratic order; labourers who obtain employment are still predominantly black.'
Hugo takes the narrative two generations ahead, focusing on the relationship between work and worker, making the viewer aware of the face of labour, which we may not always be aware of, though they form an important part of our landscape, economy, community and life.
Her 2008 painting The Seamstress, for example, brings us up close and personal with a woman who works in the clothing industry.
Gerard Sekoto
Born in 1913 in Botshabelo, just outside Gauteng, Sekoto was drawn to art as a child and would practise drawing on his school slate, and used clay from the river banks to make small sculptures.
He was a pioneer visual artist who made many paintings portraying the harsh socioeconomic realities of life for black folks in urban South Africa. He did so by standing on street corners and capturing people in their domestic and everyday activities, such as hanging laundry up to dry.
In 1947 Sekoto fulfilled his childhood dream of being an artist in Paris, through what he called a 'self-imposed exile'.
Back in South Africa in 1989, Wits University awarded him an honorary doctorate, helping him in his move to a retirement home for artists where he could paint and converse with friends until his death in 1993 at the age of 79, just one year before Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa.
Lena Hugo
For more than 30 years, exhibiting widely in group and solo exhibitions locally and abroad, Lena Hugo has portrayed ordinary people and workers.
Her work highlights the dignity of her subjects and serves as a visual archive of labour and identity in South Africa. A key theme in Hugo's work is highlighting the fundamental significance of having a job – not only as a means of survival but also for its impact on psychological wellbeing and a sense of belonging.
Hugo vividly remembers one of her most compelling memories originating from her childhood: her special relationship with Ngoanang William Matseba, a man who worked as the family gardener. She describes William as a protective, father figure who would reward her with Chappies bubblegum for garden chores well done.
Although he was treated well by her family, she still remembers with sadness his plate and cup stored in a cupboard under the kitchen sink, separated from the rest of the family's crockery. William would later become a central figure in her portraits and the most-often depicted worker in her portfolio. DM
The exhibition Working Life in South Africa: Gerard Sekoto & Lena Hugo is on at the Strauss & Co gallery in Johannesburg until the end of May.
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.