STELLA SHAWZIN (South
African)
“Emerging Forms”
Ink & Watercolour.
21 ½” x 12 ¼”. Signed IMAGE
Stella
Shawzin was born in Transvaal, South
Africa. She studied singing, dancing and acting from a
young age and appeared in films and on stage in England. She studied
painting in London under Martin Block, the Colourist. She also attended the 57th Street
Art Students League of New York where she studied anatomy
under George Bridgeman and painting under Frank Vincent DuMond and Yasuo
Kuniyoshi. She also attended the Pratt
Institute Workshop for Artists where she studied graphics. She used the local
ruffians in Cape Town as her models and also Herrero and Mponga tribes. She would always paint her models from
different sides producing several versions of the same sitter. She would then choose the best one and reject
the others. She was also interested in lithography and engraving and she worked
with Michael Ponce de Leon and Anthony Harrison’s studio. She had her own foundry in Constantia, Cape Town and was assisted by Simon Monakali. She used Carlo Nicoli’s studio in Italy when working on very large sculptures.
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