The virtual museum · Namibia 1943–1987
The museum that should have been.
Walk through 221 linocuts and original lino blocks by one of the twentieth century’s great printmakers, hung in date order across a domed rotunda, a vaulted Long Gallery, six rooms and a Print Room.
Best on a laptop or desktop. On a phone, drag to look and use the on-screen joystick to walk.
Inside the museum
The museum follows Muafangejo’s working life in order. It begins with his student prints from Rorke’s Drift in the Long Gallery and moves through six rooms to the last prints he made in Windhoek in 1987. The original carved lino blocks lie in glass cases in the Print Room at the far end.
Click any print on the wall to see it full screen with its inscription. The Catalogue inside the museum lists every work and can take you straight to it.
From the collection
The Artist
Muafangejo was born in 1943 at Etunda lo Nghadi in southern Angola, among the Kwanyama people whose history runs through his work. From 1967 to 1969 he studied at the Evangelical Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre at Rorke’s Drift in Natal, where he learned the linocut.
He taught art at the mission school at Odibo and settled in Windhoek in 1977. Working almost entirely in black and white, he carved his own handwriting into the block beside the image to record everyday life, Kwanyama history, his faith, his friendships and the hardships of Namibia under apartheid and war.
His prints were shown at the São Paulo Biennial in 1972 and the Brooklyn Museum in 1976. He died in Katutura, Windhoek, on 27 November 1987, and is now counted among the finest linocut artists of the twentieth century.
Library
The Complete Graphic Works of John Muafangejo. A Catalogue Raisonné 1968–1987
Compiled and edited by Orde Levinson · Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu
The complete record of all 262 known graphic works, each documented and illustrated, with essays on his life and work by Pat Gilmour, Olga Levinson, Orde Levinson, Edward Lucie-Smith and Steven Sack. 427 pages.
Find on Amazon
Visions of Love and Sorrow: the Art of John Muafangejo
Orde Levinson · Foreword by Nelson Mandela
A portrait of the artist through his linocuts of homesteads, battles, wildlife, faith and daily life, and the most accessible introduction to his work in English.
Find on AmazonFurther reading
Twenty Years of Printmaking in South Africa
Philippa Hobbs and Elizabeth Rankin
The history of the Rorke’s Drift Art and Craft Centre, where Muafangejo trained, and the artists who made prints there.
Find a copyFree download
Muafangejo carved his own lettering into almost every block. We cut those letters out of his prints one by one, from Snow was Making Artist Fall Down Twice in Finland, Judas Iscariot, Elephant is Killing a Lion in Funny Way and others, and made them into a typeface you can install and use. It is the lettering you are reading now.
Includes TTF, OTF and web font files. Version 2.0: the full alphabet in capitals and lower case, all ten numerals and everyday punctuation, built from many examples of each letter, with variants that rotate so repeated letters never look stamped. Free for personal and non-commercial use; for commercial use, please contact the Trust.
Aa Bb Kk
Hope and Optimism
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPRSTUVWY
abcdefghijklmnoprstuvwy
0 1 4 5 6 7 8 9 . : ! ?
Licensing and contact
The John Muafangejo Trust holds the worldwide copyright in his artworks. We welcome enquiries about licensing his prints for books, catalogues and articles, film and documentary, exhibitions, education and other creative projects.
Email the Trust
info@johnmuafangejo.com
The museum that should have been
Walk through the linocuts of John Ndevasia Muafangejo, hung in date order from his student years at Rorke’s Drift to his final prints in Katutura.
Building the galleries…
John Muafangejo (1943–1987)
© John Muafangejo Trust. Photograph: Strauss & Co (auction record).
