Local Art • 1948
The Polly Street Centre is established in Johannesburg as a community centre for black township youths. Cecil Skotnes (1926–2009) becomes the director of the arts workshop in 1952, and encourages students to study West and Central African sculptures. Artists such as Durant Sihlali, Ephraim Ngatane, Sydney Kumalo, Ben Macala, Louis Maqhubela, Lucas Sithole, and Helen Sebidi receive their initial training here.
An entry from the timeline included in the exhibition Dada South? Experimentation, Radicalism and Resistance (2009–2010) at the Iziko National Gallery, which proposed connections between art production in South Africa and abroad against the social and political contexts that framed them. A revised version of this timeline was later featured in the retroactive Flight Paths (2011) exhibition guide commissioned by Clare Butcher.