Moses Tladi

MOSES TLADI 1903-1959 Moses Tladi, the first black landscape painter in a traditional realist mode, came to Johannesburg in 1920. Employed by Herbert Read as a gardener on this property, then known as Lokshoek, he began painting here. Read showed his work to neighbor Howard Pim, who introduced Tladi to the Polly Street Art group. In 1931 he became the first black artist to exhibit at the National Gallery in Cape Town. Tladi served in the SADF in World War II and continued painting until 1956, when he was forced from his home in Kensington B by apartheid laws and never painted again.