South African Zulu Pottery Master Artist Nesta Nala Ukhamba “Beer Pot” Vase

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South African Zulu Pottery Master Artist Nesta Nala Ukhamba “Beer Pot” Vase:
$3200.00

Nesta Nala (1940-2005) was an award-winning South African Zulu potter. Nala learnt how to make traditional Zulu beer pots from her mother Siphiwe, who was also a potter. She has in turn also taught her daughters Jabu, Zanele and Thembi Nala the Craft. In the mid-1980s, Nesta Nala made the transition from rural potter to art potter, after being highlighted as a master ceramist in Rhoda Levinsohn's Art and Craft in Southern Africa. Nala represented South Africa at the Cairo International Biennale for Ceramics in 1994. She won a first prize at the FNB VITA National Craft Exhibition in 1995 and another at the national ceramics biennial in 1996. Her bulbous coil-built, burnished, pit-fired and smoked pots are embellished with complex raised and incised designs in the classical ‘amasumpa’ style. The pots are then rubbed in animal fat and polished.

Signed and dated.