The extraordinary reconstruction of South African art history in the 1980s and in the 1990s, in the context of the dramatic events of 1994 (the first democratic elections in the country's history), has been made possible by the remarkable research efforts of two conscientious art historians: Elza Miles and Sue Williamson. In monographs or books such as Ernest Mancoba: A Resorce Book (1994), Land and Lives: A Story of early Black Artists (1997), Nomfanekiso Who Paints at Night: The Art of Gladys Mgudlandlu, all three by Elza Miles, Resistance Art in South Africa (1989) and Art in South Africa: The Future Present (1996, written with Ashraf Jamal), both by Sue Williamson, they have enabled the world to view and appreciate South African art in totally unexpected ways. Not only have they renewed the perception of this art in relation world art in the twentieth century, they have also defamiliarized the world of preconceived notions of what African art should be and can be. They have remapped South African art history in a radical manner by situating the role of the New African artists of the New African Movement in the creation of African modernism in the foreground, if not in the forefront, of African history in the twentieth century. They have achieved this reshifting and reshaping in the understanding of South African art and South African art history by delineating the achievements of Ernest Mancoba and Gerard Sekoto in exile in France where they were for many decades. Both of them (Mancoba and Sekoto) spent a large part of the last fifty years of their lives adjacent to the School of Paris which was founded Picasso and Matisse and terminated in Alberto Giacometti. Given their spatial and artistic proximity to European modernism, it is not surprising that Mancoba became a member of the Cobra group of Danish artists who contributed to the making of European modernism. By situating Mancoba and Sekoto at the center of South African history, Elza Miles and Sue Williamson, have made South Africans aware that the fundamental achievement of these New African artists was their creation of modern art in displacement of traditional art. Their achievement was singular in that Ernest Mancoba and Gerard Sekoto defeated the imperial and colonial project of attempting to limit the African imagination to traditional arts. In this undertaking of modernizing the African imagination, Mancoba and Sekoto were in concurrence with the other New African intellectuals of the New African Movement. While they achieved this in the realm of fine arts, other intellectuals such as S. E. K. Mqhayi, Nontsizi Mgqwetho, Benedict Wallet Vilakazi, H. I. E. Dhlomo realized this aim through literary form, while others like Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Walter Rubusana, Charlotte Manye Maxeke, Simon Majakathetha Phamotse made it this possible by means of political practice: all of them through intellectual practice instilled the consciousness and the necessity of modernity in the sensibility of all South Africans. The symmetry of the different currents of New African Movement was in unity about the absoluteness of modernity as Arthur Rimbaud had willed it in the consaciousness of Europeans. This extraordinary reconstruction of the history of South African modern art coincided with the monumental achievement of Okwui Enwezor, the brilliant Nigerian art curator and art historian. Enwezor, through a series of breakthrough exhibitions and compelling essays, made the world art community accept and recognize that contemporary African art had as much historical validity and aesthetic merit as traditional African art of masks and sculptures. In outstanding exhibitions such as Second Johannesburg Biennale of 1997, Crossing: Space, Time and Movement and others, Enwezor the vitality of contemporary African art. The culminating point of this historic achievement was his organizing of the The Short Century exhibition (a visual presentation of contemporary African art) and the publication of the accompanying catalog of the same name. The catalog published in 2001 is a great African book that has opened the twenty-first century to Africa in a very spectacular way. This intellectual achievement of Enwezor compelled many leading art journals and magazines such as Flash Art, Art in America, Artforum, Art Journal, and newspapers such as New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Observer, not only to start writing about contemporary African art, but to write about it in a serious vein and with as much attention on their pages as they had been doing with contemporary art from other parts of the world, especially European art. It is in the context of the remarkable undertakings of Elza Miles and Okwui Enwezor that Ernest Mancoba has been revealed to us anew. The new appraisal of the paintings and drawings of Mancoba enables the reconstruction of the patterns of South African art history. Beginning with Mancoba within the Petersburg Art Movement (which included among others, Gerald Sekoto and Nimrod Ndebele) one can trace the development of this art history linking it with the Polly Street Art Scene of the 1960s (Cecil Skotnes, Durant Sihlali, Sydney Kumalo, Ezrom Legae, Lucas Sithole and Ephraim Ngatane) up to the present with figures such Santu Mofokeng. Mancoba enables one also to construct a full splay of South African ary history by connecting him figures such as Walter Battiss, Alexis Preller and others. In short, Ernest Mancoba stands at the center of South African art history in the twentieth-century.