beer pot, unrecorded Zulu artist

This large beer pot featuring a zig-zag band of raised bumps, or amasumpa, represents an established Zulu art form found in many museum collections. However, the history of the amasumpa motif reveals how African art and modes of decoration developed within racialized systems of classification. Before colonial rule, Zulu women created ceramics characterized by diverse decorative techniques that revealed the robust, multi-directional exchange of artistic knowledge among various individuals and communities. By the mid-1900s, however, apartheid educational policies in South Africa forced the “retribalization” of rural black communities into segregated racial and ethnic groups. Mapping this policy onto women’s art, Jack Grossert, a white arts administrator and educator, promoted the exclusive use of amasumpa design to Zulu potters through textbooks. Zulu artists have since engaged with Grossert’s prescriptive teaching in negotiating demand for this art form.