The Selby Mvusi Open Letter to the Delegates of the International Congress of African Art and Culture

(1962) and Related Correspondence

Jonathan Zilberg, Ph.D, Associate Research Scholar,

Center for African Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

As copied from the microfilms of The Alfred Hamilton Barr, Jr. Papers, Director, Museum of Modern Art

in The Archives of American Arts, 1285 Ave of the Americas with assistance from Joy Weiner, archivist.

Series 1 – The Correspondence Series, Search terms: “McEwen” and “Salisbury”

Reel #3260. 1. Files: Writings 4-1418.

Barr’s travel notes begin on Reel 3260 at frame 1023. Of the ICAC and related data, the Mvusi and

related correspondence, as copied below, my notes unfortunately do not provide the frame number

locations.

Item 1. Mvusi’s Open Letter to the ICAC Delegates.

My designation. Undated as far as the notes record.

Paragraph breaks and tabs are I think given as in the original letters. Written at speed to get the essence

of what I needed, there are occasional apparently missing portions and in cases my handwriting is

ineligible. These are marked here as indicated in the note books (. . . .) or (wavy line) or herein as

(ineligible).

Members: International Congress of African Art and Culture.

Open Letter to Frank McEwen, Director-Rhodes National Gallery

Dear Frank;

It is indeed with deep regret that this letter which should have been one of congratulations and

praise for an otherwise excellent and meritorious achievement on your part in organizing the past ICAC:

should on my part, be one of personal censure.

The article in The Observer, and now Newsweek, and no doubt many more papers (. . . . ) feature

me as your protégé.

Frank you know that during the year 1961, which I spent in Southern Rhodesia, I had little to do

with the National Gallery.

[wavy line]

Where Frank, where in all of this do I emerge as your protégé? I warned you once before when

the Rhodesian Herald quoted you as having said: “Selby Mvusi’s work is as good as that of any European

Artist.” You flatly denied having made such an utterance. Perhaps the (ineligible) and (ineligible) of the

articles is equally a misrepresentation of whatever you said. If so, absolve yourself. If not, know that my

regard of your integrity is nil.

The new Art of Africa will on its own come to full flowering in spite of “Africa-carrerists”

amongst whom I must now count you. Yes Frank, we all are either too young or too old, too

uncommitted too long wed to words, to too concerned with meaning to have (meaning?). Forlorn we

stand apart, impotent we disdain. I claim no particular virtue for myself, for Art lives not on sectionalism

and appointed virtue. Hers is to “show Virtue her own features, scorn her own Image.” Of the many

teachers I have knelt to learn none have cited me as their protégé. Many, indeed, have shouted

Comrade! in the course of Art.”

Item 2: Letter of Reply From Barr to Mvusi

September 28, 1962

Dear Mvusi,

As you can imagine I read the copy of your letter to Frank McEwen with real distress. I too

noticed the word protégé in the Newsweek article but I immediately discounted it as a reportorial

mistake. (wavy line)

I can hardly believe that Frank McEwen would have used the word protégé in reference to you

in view of what you tell me in your letter. In any case, this is really a devoted self-sacrificing spirit whom

you attacked without giving him the lightest benefit of a reasonable doubt.

(There are no further notes made to indicate if there was more to the letter or even it was signed but

this is sufficient as it is to quote from).

Item 3: Reply to Barr from Mvusi

School of Fine Art

KUNST

Kumasi

Ghana

October 10 1962

Dear Mr. Barr,

Many thanks for your letter of the 28th of September. Of those who have since replied to my “open letter” to Frank, John Russel, Roland Penrose, Dr. Biobaku are of the sentiment you express. I do agree with you and with them, concerning Frank’s “self-sacrificing spirit.” The better part of Nancy Thomas’ BBC TV interviews, was on my part devoted to paying tribute to Frank. This as you will recall was after The Observer article of August 5 which first used the phrase. A week together we were together. No one made mention of it – certainly not Frank.

Anyway, Frank has since replied to my open letter to him pointing out that my attack on him is motivated by ambition – a view many, discreet not to say so, must no doubt share. This is as was expected. It is a logical conclusion. The only illogicality involved is not taking into account that I was and am more than aware of the high esteem Frank enjoys among lovers of art in the Western world. My open letter must therefore be seen as the height of folly for an ambitious African artist.

It certainly was not ambition, neither was it vindictiveness that prompted my writing the open letter. Perhaps a hurt ego? No – not even that. It is the socio-political implications of such statements the repercussions of which far transcend the area of the personal and the individual. It was this that made it imperative for me to write the “Open Letter to FranK McEwen – Director Rhodes National Gallery.”

Believe me, I do not doubt that Frank spoke well of my work. It represents a solid bond between us. But that does not obliterate the fact that in Africa today life is war. There is no Paris to flee to – Algeria was there (note the news from Salisbury – these days!)

Tom Maybank may perhaps have mentioned it to you that I personally questioned the omission of white Africans from the Congress – in both the exhibition and the deliberations. They are a patch of the new culture and the new Africa. Cab he (?, assumedly Frank) ignore them to favour such as I?

[As with the above item there is no written indication as to whether this is the end of the letter and if it is whether it was signed which it must have been].

Item 4: McEwen to Barr.

Letter on Rhodes National Gallery letterhead. The date on these letters is indicated as ’62 not 1962. I assume the originals read ’62 but cannot be sure.

15th October ’62

The relevant part of the letter reads:

“I was astounded, bewildered and hurt by Mvusi’s unfair aggression. I have never called him, or wanted him, as a protégé. The works we have were painted before I met him. I am so unpaternalistic that I could never use such a word. We did help him two years ago when he imagined that the police were after him at considerable danger to ourselves. I have done nothing but praise and admire him.

Personally I came to Africa as to a purgatory. From this viewpoint the ideals and moral battles of the Western world appear uninteresting and tame. At the moment they belong to a well-known past. We are here suffering from the vital ills of the future. My position is unstable: balancing on a knife edge between uncontrollable powers. I soon will have to extricate myself: not without great sorrow. . . .

[skip 4 paragraphs, though given in the notes]

Our African Trustee, who spoke at our pre-Congress lunch party, Nathan Shamuyarira, has resigned his post of Editor-in-Chief of the local African Newspapers. He is at present in New York giving evidence at the U.N. He is a friend of Taylor Ostrender and I wonder if you will see him?

I have good contact for the next ICAC. I will study this prospect in Nigeria on my way to Ghana Africanist Congress in Accra in December, to which our University is sending me.

[wavy line]

I am sorry to burden you with so long a letter, but I have one great request to make. This is to ask you if you get a chance, to give your appreciation of the ICAC to Mr. Champion Ward of The Fort Foundation. This is most important, because he has always been a staunch supporter of ICAC realizing from the start that I was not an agent of British Colonialism or Neo-Colonialism. I hear, however that he has been influenced unfavorably from I know not what sources, and also by the stupid inappropriate mutterings of Newsweek. He may consider me partly to blame because of my chopping and changing dates. Although he is remarkable familiar with the complexities of our local situation, he cannot, and nobody can conceive of what I have had to contend with in order to create, what we did create –some love and enthusiasm for a cause of permanent human values in a wilderness of misunderstanding and latent strife.”

[Again, no salutation is given in the notes to clearly indicate that the end of the text recorded the end of the letter]

Item 5

Letter From Barr to McEwen, 28 September 1962

Dear Frank,

I look back on the wonderful fortnight in Rhodesia with wonder and enthusiasm [. . . ] I really do not know how to thank you adequately.

Here I have spoken with everyone about how successful the Congress was. I expect to make a report to our Board of Trustees at an early meeting. Unfortunately a good many people here read the account in newseek which gave the impression I think truthful that few Africans came to the exhibition but did not explain why. However the account did you credit. . . .

Speaking of Newsweek, I received a letter from Mvusi which distresses me. I too noticed the word protégé but did not know enough about the situation to question it. . . . . whatever these contretemps. The Congress was, I think, a real triumph, a tour de force in the best sense of the word, an event which I hope will lead to similar meetings.