Lot 229: John Koenakeefe Mohl SOUTH AFRICAN 1903-1985 - Serowe, Botswana

John Koenakeefe Mohl
SOUTH AFRICAN 1903-1985
Serowe, Botswana
signed and dated 54
oil on canvas laid down on board
34 by 44cm

After training as a teacher in South Africa, Mohl attended the Kunst-Akademie Düsseldorf, in Germany. After returning to South Africa, he had
some public success, participating in six exhibitions under the auspices of the South African Academy, exhibiting at the Empire Exhibition in
Johannesburg in 1936, and having his first solo exhibition in Bloemfontein in 1941. In 1944, he established an art school at his home in
Sophiatown, and made various efforts to raise art awareness in his local community including arranging a solo exhibition at the Christ the King
Church in Sophiatown in 1957. Mohl continued teaching after he was forced to move to Soweto under the apartheid-era Group Areas Act, and in
1962 was one of the founder members of the Artist's Market Association (Artists Under the Sun), which was one of the few outlets for black
artists’ work at the time.