Black Leopard

Kumalo’s approach to sculptural form is immediately recognisable. He often fuses human and animal forms into mythical beasts. The treatment of the leopard subject in this work is an example of his representation of the mythical through ABSTRACTION. This is not the leopard of nature or the zoo, but of nightmares and folktales, and in classic Polly Street style it wrestles with incorporating different traditions of sculptural sensibilities.

Kumalo often returned to the same motif multiple times to reimagine its form. This example, Black Leopard, was probably cast by prominent collector Egon Guenther. Its sinuous abstraction of form and its angularity are typical not only of Kumalo’s iconography, but of his ability to use bronze as a malleable and expressive material.

Artwork courtesy of Standard Bank Corporate Art Collection.