Maquette for the Gandhi Memorial, Pietermaritzburg

This maquette, in resin, paint and copper, stands in a different attitude to the finished work which is now installed outside the old colonial buildings in Church Street, Pietermaritzburg, and is a major landmark in that city.

Gandhi spent 11 of his 21 years in South Africa in KwaZulu- Natal, and it was that sojourn, and Gandhi’s forcible ejection from a train on account of his race, that shaped the statesman’s political philosophy of satyagraha or passive resistance. Momberg’s maquette is suitably beatific, though not quite as messianic as the final public statue.

The sculptor’s attention to detail shines through in the work, and it is no surprise that in his departure from his customary subject of the female nude, it should be such a recognisable (and, at the time, less controversial) public figure that captured Momberg’s imagination. 

Artwork courtesy of Iziko South African National Gallery.