Beauty Ngxongo

Beauty Batimbele Ngxongo (born 1953)[1] is a South African master weaver of Zulu baskets.[2][3] Her baskets have reached international fame.[4] She lives in Hlabisa, in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.[2]

Beauty Ngxongo
Born
Beauty Batimbele Ngxongo

1953 (age 69–70)
KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa
OccupationBasket weaver

Biography

Ngxongo wove doormats and table mats in her childhood.[5] In the 1990s, a neighbor taught Ngxongo how to make intricate basket designs using local natural products (like grasses and Ilala palm leaves).[5] A single Zulu basket that holds water take months to complete. By 2012, she employed 13 women to help her workshop.[5] Finding buyers can be difficult as plastic containers are so easily available. However, she has collaborated with two contemporary designers to create what they call the Hlabisa Bench. The bench's shape channels the profiles of the hills of Hlabisa, the village where Ngxongo and her fellow workers live.[2]

Her work can be found in museum collections including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art,[6] and the Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).[2][5] Additionally, her work is part of the MTN Art Collection, a private, corporate art collection in Johannesburg.[7]

See also

References
  1. "Weaving new solutions / Jannie van Heerden, Chonat Getz, Helene Smuts". Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  2. Chemaly, Tracy Lynn (7 July 2021). "Beauty Ngxongo: Woven in Time". TLmagazine. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  3. "The Master: Beauty Ngxongo". Lexus Life. 20 August 2020. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  4. Rosengarten, Dale; Rosengarten, Theodore; Schildkrout, Enid; Carney, Judith Ann (2008). Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art. Museum for African Art (New York, N.Y.), McKissick Museum. Museum for African Art. ISBN 978-0-945802-50-1.
  5. Strickland, Carol (13 December 2012). "How Basketry Preserved a People". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  6. "Breaking the Frame: Women Artists in the Harn Collections". 24 September 2020.
  7. Messages and Meaning: The MTN Art Collection. MTN Foundation. 2006. pp. 40–41. ISBN 978-0-9584860-6-4.
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