Black Art

We have been collecting African art since 1974, it was a venture to support the previously disadvantaged Artists in Africa.

In late 1974 Michael Gerald Canes, the founder and co-owner of the Gerlad A Lee Gallery met a talented but struggling artist named Nat Makgosi. Having no idea that Nat would introduce him to the art world he started purchasing all of Nat’s art works as a way to help out his fellow man.

In the years that followed Nat introduced Michael to many other artists, such as the likes of Winston Churchill Saoli, who’s still considered brilliant by his peers and art critics alike, with his art depicting Africa as a woman crying in shame or even as a dead animal.

Impressed by the talent and meanings in many of these and other painter’s pieces, Michael bought all art works shown to him, thus growing a small private collection into a mass collection of over 12000 pieces.  All pieces are authentic pieces of art, purchased directly from the artists themselves.

 The other step taken is one of recognising great talent from street artists, supplying them with paints, brushes and canvases and even lessons from art instructors, somewhat taking a rough diamond and helping to polish it…

In 2006 Michael started selling the acquired art to the public and now supplies galleries, shops, auctioneers, game reserves and the private sector with the incredible array of African stories through the artist’s hands.

What started off as one man’s mission to help those whom were pushed aside due to the ‘apartheid era’ , has now turned into a family business with the objective of showing the rest of the world that there is great talent to be found in Africa, thus the slogan, ‘putting African artists on the map’ was developed.

From a few select artists’ now the gallery show cases over 70 artists’, each depicting their struggles, achievements and passions through various mediums.

The gallery supports a variety of charity foundations. From auctions of paintings where all proceeds go to the charities, to supplying the charities directly with paintings… A few other ventures also include framing for charities to our expense. The newest venture recently started is the “Paint a fun day” which is a workshop we hold for some abused children, where they get to have fun and learn from some of the greats, all art supplies supplied by us to help them see a brighter tomorrow. Many more exciting ventures are on the horizon…

The name sake ‘Gerald A Lee’ comes from his immediate family, taking all second names into account. Gerald is Michael’s second name, the A comes from his wife and son, Carol Ann and Jason Alan respectively and Lee is from his daughter Cindy Lee, thus uniting his family under the banner: The Gerald A Lee Gallery..

You can view the latest pieces that are updated daily and contact us if you would like to purchase a piece of art you fancy, or, set up a meeting to view more artworks from our featured Artists at one of our galleries situated in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

This website is a stepping stone to assist artists in making their mark on the art world.

We supply Apartheid, Investment and Up and coming artists Art pieces.

We also stock artworks from, Billy Molokeng, Ntungwane, Mike Khali and David Mbela, however these paintings are not listed on the website at present, for more details kindly mail us a query. 

For pricing kindly contact one of our distributors…