An upcoming exhibition is showing rare anti-apartheid graphics

Franco’s Greatest Hits! The Graphic Art of Franco Frescura
Venue: Phansi Ubuntu Art Museum, 5000 Esther Roberts Road, Durban
Dates: October 6 to 20
Price: Free entrance
Gallery hours: Monday to Thursday 8am to 4pm; Friday 8am to 3pm; Saturday 10am to 2pm

Political graphics by anti-apartheid activist, architect and author Franco Frescura are being exhibited from next week at the Phansi Ubuntu Art Museum in Durban. The exhibition will consist mostly of works drawn in the 1970s and published in the student press and by the Council of Churches and the Study Project on Christianity in Apartheid Society.

The exhibition opens on September 22 at 10am. It will be introduced by Lesley Frescura, Franco’s wife and sometimes uncredited collaborator.

Pictures courtesy of gallery

Lesley was also formerly involved in human rights through her work with Amnesty International South Africa, the Black Sash Eastern Cape, the Human Rights Trust in Port Elizabeth and Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria.

Frescura’s work forms part of a group of white anti-apartheid activists that includes Neville and Jenny Curtis, Horst Kleinschmidt, Neil Aggett and David Webster.

Says the gallery: “Although the drawings in this exhibition are the work of one person, behind him stand many members of a non-racial South African community ”

Italian-born Franco moved to South Africa when he was nine. He obtained his PhD in architecture at Wits University, and was the author of a book on the self-built architecture of indigenous communities living in rural South Africa.

“His work in the field of rural indigenous architecture also continued to undermine the precepts of a racist, bigoted patriarchy whose minority rule ran counter to all ideals of a South African democracy,” says the gallery.

• A book illustrating Frescura’s work and published by the Phansi Museum will be on sale