William Kentridge — artist with roots in the Russian Empire
William Kentridge is a South African artist born in Johannesburg who is widely considered the greatest living South African artist and one of the most important visual artists of our time. His animated films, drawings, and theatre productions explore colonialism, apartheid, and human complicity with remarkable moral and aesthetic power.
Tracing the roots — Lithuania / Russia
His family — through both his father Sydney Kentridge (the renowned barrister) and his mother Felicia Geffen — has Lithuanian and Russian Jewish ancestry, emigrating to South Africa as part of the Jewish migration from the Russian Empire. The family's activism — Sydney Kentridge represented Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko's families — gave William the moral framework that powers his art.
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Lithuania / Russia. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.