Cape Town Art Trail: The Top South African Artists and Where You Can See Their Work

South Africa’s oldest city has long been famous for its scenery, food and wine, but it gained cultural credentials with the opening of the Zeitz MOCAA, the world’s largest museum dedicated to contemporary African art. A range of galleries and tours has followed, making the city beneath Table Mountain an unbeatable place to experience African creativity.

Between the docks and Devil’s Peak, Woodstock and neighbouring Salt River are a regenerating area of repurposed textile factories and warehouses, bringing to mind parts of East London and Brooklyn. Local kids kick footballs and pastel cottages decay on the side streets, evoking the old Cape Town that was largely demolished during apartheid (visit the District Six Museum for more on that) – and creating an edgy and unsettled environment for private contemporary art galleries. Some of the country’s best independent spaces are found on the main roads, including Stevenson, SMAC, Goodman, 34FineArt and the South African Print Gallery on Sir Lowry Road. On parallel Albert Road are the creative Old Biscuit Mill and Woodstock Exchange complexes, the latter occupying a reimagined cookie factory, as well as Art It Is gallery.

Many of Cape Town’s state institutions are located in and around Company’s Garden, the park that once supplied Dutch East India Company ships with fresh fruit and veg. The South African National Gallery is the cultural highlight here, its large collection including genres from European masters to apartheid-era resistance art. In the latter category, look out for the three creepy figures comprising Jane Alexander’s unsettling sculpture The Butcher Boys (1985–86) – more recently referenced by South African band Die Antwoord. Nearby, the South African Jewish Museum displays an impressive collection of some 200 netsuke, miniature ceremonial carvings worn by affluent Japanese merchants during the time of the Samurai. While in this area, wander across to the craft market on Greenmarket Square and head up Church Street, another hub for private galleries.

Several guided tours cover Cape Town’s cultural scene, offering the opportunity to visit galleries, access artists’ studios and meet the creators with a local expert. Art Route Cape Town, operated by two knowledgeable local curators, runs tours focussed on everything from township art and private galleries to the Zeitz MOCAA and the Cape Winelands. Zimbabwean artist Juma Mkwela offers street-art walking tours of Woodstock and the township of Khayelitsha, while the Maboneng Township Arts Experience visits Langa township’s Guga S’Thebe Arts and Cultural Centre and artists’ home galleries. Cultural tour companies Coffeebeans Routes and Andulela organise interactive experiences of everything from Cape jazz and backyard theatre to Cape Malay cooking and black winemakers.

In the idyllic Winelands surrounding Cape Town, you can mix culture with wine tasting on the grand Cape Dutch estates. Atop the pass between the towns of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, Delaire Graff Estate’s art collection includes one of the world’s most familiar and reproduced paintings – not the Mona Lisa, but the kitschy Chinese Girl (1952) by Russian–South African artist Vladimir Tretchikoff. Neighbouring Tokara has a sculpture garden; nearby La Motte has a gallery of landscapes by South African Modernist master Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef; L’Ormains includes the Franschhoek Motor Museum; Solms-Delta’s museums tell the stories of marginalised winery labourers and Cape music; and Glenelly displays its French owner’s collection of glass art by the likes of Salvador Dalí. These are just a few of the winery highlights, while museums and galleries in the refined towns cover subjects from Stellenbosch’s Cape Dutch architecture to Franschhoek’s French Huguenot heritage.

Part historical tribute, tourist attraction and collaborative artwork, this field of 100 life-size bronze figures honours the heroes of South Africa’s long struggle for democracy, including Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and Oliver Tambo. Aiming to eventually include 400 struggle icons, the project has already created numerous job opportunities through the involvement of 40 sculptors’ studios, eight foundries and five trainees. It’s open daily at the National Heritage Monument, Century City.