Dumile Feni

Zwelidumile Geelboi Mgxaji Mhlaba "Dumile" Feni (May 21, 1942 – 1991) was a South African contemporary visual artist known for both his drawings and paintings that included sculptural elements, as well as for his sculptures, which often depicted the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa.

Feni was born in the small farmstead of Withuis in Worcester, Cape Province, South Africa, to parents Geelbooi Magoqwana, a trader and evangelist, and Bettie Nothemba Mgxaji, a business woman.

[3] He lived in self-imposed exile from 1968 to 1991 based between London, Los Angeles and New York.

He was an artist in residence at the Institute of African Humanities in Los Angeles, at the University of California.

[6][7] According to Dr Amitabh Mitra: "The common man in present day South Africa is largely unaware of Dumile Feni's work and the Contemporary South African Art movement touts him as a 'Goya of Townships'.

Composition for a Memoriam (1969) in the exhibition Afro-Atlantic Histories at the National Gallery of Art , Washington, DC , in 2022