This is the large mural of Anton Lembede on the side of Six Durban Club Place in central Durban (on the corner of Anton Lembede Street, formerly Smith Street).
Key details
- Subject: Anton Muziwakhe Lembede (1914–1947), lawyer, philosopher, and founding president of the ANC Youth League. He is shown in a suit holding a briefcase, as a young lawyer walking purposefully (the work is titled Anton Lembede Bachelor of Law).
- Artist: Sakhile Mhlongo (a Durban University of Technology fine art graduate known for large-scale realistic portraits).
- Scale and installation: Approximately 600 m² (one of the largest privately funded public artworks in KwaZulu-Natal at the time). It was created as a canvas work and then reproduced on vinyl/sections and installed in January 2017.
- Commissioner: Urban Lime Properties (led by Jonny Friedman) as part of the regeneration of the Durban Club Place area into a professional/legal quarter near the High Court. The mural faces onto the street renamed in Lembede’s honour.
- Style: Black-and-white/monochrome realistic portrait with strong contrast, designed to be highly visible from street level and surrounding buildings.
Lembede was a major early influence on figures such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Oliver Tambo. He helped shape African nationalist ideology in South Africa before his early death at age 33. The mural deliberately links his legacy as a pioneering Black lawyer to the legal professionals who still work in the building and the surrounding precinct.
