1987
Photo-etching and screenprint collage
100 x 70 cm
From A Few South Africans series
Courtesy of The Goodman Gallery.
Born in Johannesburg in 1932, Miriam Zensile Makeba was 20 when she became a vocalist with top local group the Manhattan Brothers. As the star of King Kong, a musical about a black boxer, Miriam Makeba moved to London and then to the United States, where she became internationally famous. After giving evidence at the United Nations against apartheid, her passport was withdrawn, and in 1960 she was not allowed to enter South Africa to attend her mother’s funeral. She had become an exile.