South African National Gallery

The Iziko South African National Gallery stands in Cape Town, presenting national art within the city’s wider Iziko Museums. Its building opened to the public in 1930. Inside, Dutch, French, and British works from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries sit alongside contemporary South African art.

In 1850, proposals for an exhibition building in the Company’s Garden led to South Africa’s first fine art exhibition in 1851. The national collection began with Thomas Butterworth Bayley’s 1872 bequest. Selections from the permanent collection rotate through temporary exhibitions, bringing historical and contemporary work into changing focus. The gallery became part of the Iziko Museums in 2001 and is managed by the Department of Arts and Culture.

Sculpture and beadwork represent South African communities, while paintings, lithographs, and etchings broaden the collection. Jane Alexander’s The Butcher Boys and William Kentridge’s Soho Eckstein animated films are among the named works. Two notable South African pieces are Anton van Wouw’s African Head and Neville Lewis’s Adderley Street Flower-sellers.