This dissertation considers the creativity of Michael Zondi as one of South Africa’s so-called pioneer artists and the manner in which he used his art to contribute and create modernity. His creative skills initially locate him outside the classical designations of any one artistic discipline. From cabinet-making and building construction, which included an engagement as an architect and interior designer, ultimately Zondi became the proficient originator of a comparatively very large body of work in three-dimensional figurative wood sculpture. This study is largely confined to the latter body of work. The wood sculptor is located within the ambit of the black intelligentsia who, with their western mission education, was seeking to define and shape African modernity for themselves beyond descriptions mired in Eurocentric expression. Zondi’s early work emerged from crafting skills in woodwork, with thematic narratives that reflect regional sourcing among the amaZulu. Conceptually these represent a continuity of the creative practice of the generation before his own, particularly that of the black literary elite, who inspired him. He drew on the humanist values of the African communalism in which he was nurtured. As an ikholwa, he further drew on his Christian faith for guidance, using biblical inspiration for a few of his figurative works of art. Apart from participation in various group exhibitions from the early 1960s, unusual exhibition opportunities included two solo exhibitions, in 1965 and 1974, and an exhibition of his work in a group show in Paris, in 1977, which he attended personally. In the South African environment of black disempowerment and marginalization he secured his position outside party-political activism by using his art as his voice, especially among white patrons. As he found predominantly private patronage for his expressive human portraits, his philosophical exchange with enlightened friends, especially the medical practitioner Dr. Wolfgang Bodenstein, became the backdrop for his creative experience. Sensitive mentorship and informal tuition by white patrons provided Zondi with some knowledge of European modernist art. Drawing on it as an inspirational resource, the artist made discerning selections from this aesthetic in order to develop his own personal style. At the same time he ensured that his art remained accessible for a broad audience that included the rural people of his home environment, who were the source of his inspiration. Zondi’s thematic move beyond the confines of his Zuluness was the decisive factor which enabled the artist to engage in a very personal reconciliatory quest with white South Africans across the racial divide. In an endeavour which spanned the four decades of his active career as a sculptor, his self-representation through art was simultaneously an immersion in the human condition which became the expression of a shared humanity. By becoming the facilitator of reciprocity between people, it stood in defiance of the long-canonized fetish of race and segregation. By proffering his art as a means of communication, it thereby became an original and formative tool in shaping African modernity. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

The art historical foregrounding of pioneer and contemporary art of black South Africans during the last two decades of the 20th century has emphasised two-dimensional media. Given the dearth of biographies on black artists in general, it is the purpose of this dissertation to reposition the three-dimensional oeuvre of a pioneer sculptor in the context of the artistic creativity occurring within the educational and economic constraints of a segregated South Africa. While Michael Zondi's school education and vocational training was forged predominantly within a western mission context, the emergence of his talent remained largely independent of any art training initiatives or art-making institutions. This research study places a strong emphasis on Zondi's interface with a white elitist patronage base. As a member of an educated kholwa elite, Zondi's acculturation and intellectual exchange with his patrons regarding mores, belief systems and world views, centred on reciprocity, as the artist sought to redefine himself in terms of western paradigms initially imposed by colonialism. The exchange found consistent expression in Zondi's stance of reconciliation, which reflected the cross-cultural friendships under the aegis of a shared Christianity which the artist forged into a syncretism with his own received belief systems. Zondi's espousal of western cultural paradigms which facilitated the interface resulted in the public foregrounding of the work of this black artist, at a time in South African history when this was exceptional. From the 1960s the Lutheran mission enterprise in Natal provided a platform for liberation theology, challenging the suppression of indigenous belief systems as well as state autocracy and the reality of a segregated society. Given Zondi's acute political awareness, he was prompted to take up that challenge, albeit covertly, with visual texts addressing moral issues and voicing humanitarian concerns. With figurative genre sculptures frequently alluding to the artist's rootedness in his received Zulu traditions, the thematic content of some of Zondi's work shows an indigenisation of the Christian gospel as he drew on Biblically inspired imagery, making his art function as a vehicle for the articulation of his dissent. This study traces Zondi's stylistic development from representational naturalism of his early work to an espousal of a modernist visual language embracing some experimentation with his preferred medium, South African hardwoods. Within his essentially figurative representational style, and in part as a result of the intervention of his supporters, Zondi made use of expressive surface textures and distortion. His pronounced use of faceting in the later 1960s was consolidated after a short sojourn in Paris in the mid-1970s, when, for a short time, he created more conceptual human forms in a cubist manner. This represented his most marked departure from his recognizable figurative style of representational carving. While some of Zondi's pieces in private and public collections were included in group exhibitions during the 1980s and 1990s (1), research has not yet revealed pieces postdating 1987. It is probable that ill-health forced Zondi to consider his retirement from sculpting by the early 1990s. (1) "The Neglected Tradition", 1988; "Images of Wood", 1989; "Land and Lives", 1997. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.