Peter Clarke and James Matthews were born within days of each other. Clarke on 2 June 1929 in a stone cottage overlooking False Bay. Matthews eight days earlier, across Table Mountain, in a Bo-Kaap tenement building facing the city bowl. These two boys, from similar backgrounds, grew into young men before they met and formed a friendship that would last a lifetime. They became 'almost more than brothers'. Yet they are complete opposites: Clarke is charecterized by his dignified reserve and meticulous order, Mattthews by his forthrighteness and bohemian disorder. Over a period of more than forty years both became well known in their respective disciplines--Clarke became a poet, short-story writer and primarily a painter; Matthews sharted out writing short stories and novels, before establishing himself as the dispatcher of raging Black Consciousness poetry. This book is a tribute to two fiercely independent artists. It is liberally illustrated with the work of both artists in b/w and color photographs.

Gladys 'Nomfanekiso' Mgudlandlu (1917-1979) is one of the foremost exponents of Expressionism in South Africa. As a school teacher, she taught by day and, at night, she painted by the flickering light of a paraffin lamp in her 'township' house in Cape Town, South Africa. She incorporated into her art the indigenous character and essence of Africa - the legends and folklore, as well as some of the mysticism characteristic of African rituals and customs. In this book, an overview of Mgudlandlu's work, art historian Elza Miles traces the development of this singular artist - from her early, meticulously detailed works, evoking the textural richness of embroideries and tapestries, of landscapes painted from memory and imagination, depicting idyllic rural lifestyles, and large mystical bird forms, to her later works depicting urban scenes and simplification of shapes, enlivened with broad sweeping brushstrokes of colour.