TAPESTRY MANTLE MADE BY ANC ACTIVIST FOR MANDELA TO ‘FLY’ FROM PRISON FOR SALE AT BONHAMS IN LONDON ARTHUR GOLDRICIH WHO ESCAPED FROM PRISON DRESSED AS A PRIEST CREATED THIS MAGICAL DESIGN FOR MANDELA Our Coverage Sponsored by Maine Woolens
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A rare piece of ANC heritage that links Nelson Mandela to another leader of the armed fight to end Apartheid, Arthur Goldreich, will be sold at Bonhams South African art sale on March 19th in London
The item Bonhams is selling, titled ‘Mantle for Nelson’ was made by artist and designer, Arthur Goldreich (South African, 1929-2011) in 1983. It is a painted collage and raffia hanging some 104cm by 102cm and is estimated to sell for £4,000 to £6,000.
Giles Peppiatt, Head of South African Art at Bonhams says: “The work was conceived as a mantle for Nelson Mandela to fly from jail. A sort of magic flying carpet idea.”
As opposition shifted from peaceful protest to violence in the 1960’s Arthur Goldreich, an artist and designer, became a leading ANC planner. who traveled widely overseas seeking military aid and information on making weapons in East Germany, Russia and China. He wrote a detailed plan for the overthrow of South Africa based on blowing up key industrial targets. He and his family lived on Lilliesleaf Farm ten miles north of Johannesburg. This became the centre of planning for the ANC’s military wing, Umkonto we Sizwe, Spear of the Nation. On July 11 1963 the police raided the farm and took Golreich and Walter Sisulu, the ANC’s Secretary General, plus 15 others captive. Nelson Mandela had been arrested the year before.
Unlike Mandela, Goldreich managed to escape prison with another colleague Harold Wolpe, a lawyer and ANC activist, by bribing a guard and dressing up as a priests. During one of the tensest periods of the anti-apartheid struggle, a single-winged Cessna aircraft carrying two priests in dog collars took off from an airstrip in Swaziland and flew across South African territory to British Bechuanaland. The "clerics" stepped out to a rapturous welcome from the local African National Congress. The escape of the freedom fighter Arthur Goldreich had been accomplished.
Nelson Mandela valued Goldreich because of his experience fighting in Israel during and after the War of Independence in 1948. Goldreich went on to head the design department of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. In 1994 he returned briefly to South Africa to attend a reunion at Lilliesleaf which has since been turned into a Museum.
Goldreich produced this fascinating work dedicated to Nelson Mandela in 1983, when Mandela was still incarcerated.
Bonhams
Bonhams, founded in 1793, is one of the world's largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. The present company was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale. In August 2002, the company acquired Butterfields, the principal firm of auctioneers on the West Coast of America. Today, Bonhams offers more sales than any of its rivals, through two major salerooms in London: New Bond Street and Knightsbridge; and a further three in the UK regions and Scotland. Sales are also held in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Carmel, New York and Connecticut in the USA; and Germany, France, Monaco, Hong Kong and Australia. Bonhams has a worldwide network of offices and regional representatives in 25 countries offering sales advice and valuation services in 60 specialist areas. For a full listing of upcoming sales, plus details of Bonhams specialist departments go to www.bonhams.com.
