This is the first major museum exhibition in the United States for celebrated South African artist Ezrom Legae (1938–1999). After apartheid was established, many artists in South Africa contended with its corresponding oppression and bodily violence by presenting the human figure in animal form or abstracting it. This exhibition focuses on Legae’s own bestial compositions, featuring more than thirty drawings of contorted and anguished creatures, each imaginative studies and explorations of form and metaphors articulating the artist’s political consciousness. The exhibition features drawings from 1967 to 1996, foregrounding the 1970s and 1990s, each groundbreaking periods in South African political history. Amid mounting unrest and anti-apartheid protests in the 1970s, such as the Soweto uprisings, activists and civilians endured increased violence, exile, and imprisonment, often without trial and including solitary confinement. This period is considered Legae’s most prolific, in which he produced pencil, ink, and charcoal depictions of animals as covert representations of apartheid’s players and impact. The artist produced substantially less until the 1990s, when he reemerged during South Africa’s political transition with drawings addressing the end of apartheid and lingering concerns regarding racism and poverty. Legae’s beasts exemplify the ways artists use coded visual languages to subvert and endure tyranny.
Ezrom Legae: Beasts
June 13 – November 16, 2025
Ezrom Legae (South African, 1938–1999), Chicken Series, 1979, graphite and pastel on paper, Skinner Collection, Johannesburg.

Ezrom Legae (South African, 1938–1999), Horse, four stages of dying, 1967, pencil and charcoal on paper, Dr. Gavin Watkins, Private Collection, Sydney, Australia.

This exhibition is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
Premier Exhibition Series Sponsor

Premier Exhibition Series Supporters
Mr. Joseph H. Boland, Jr.
The Fay S. and W. Barrett Howell Family Foundation


Benefactor Exhibition Series Supporters
Robin and Hilton Howell
Ambassador Exhibition Series Supporters
Loomis Charitable Foundation
Mrs. Harriet H. Warren
Contributing Exhibition Series Supporters
Farideh and Al Azadi
Mary and Neil Johnson
Mr. and Mrs. Baxter Jones
Megan and Garrett Langley
Margot and Danny McCaul
Wade A. Rakes II and Nicholas Miller
Belinda Stanley-Majors and Dwayne Majors
Generous support is also provided by
Alfred and Adele Davis Exhibition Endowment Fund, Anne Cox Chambers Exhibition Fund, Barbara Stewart Exhibition Fund, Dorothy Smith Hopkins Exhibition Endowment Fund, Eleanor McDonald Storza Exhibition Endowment Fund, The Fay and Barrett Howell Exhibition Fund, Forward Arts Foundation Exhibition Endowment Fund, Helen S. Lanier Endowment Fund, John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Exhibition Endowment Fund, Katherine Murphy Riley Special Exhibition Endowment Fund, Margaretta Taylor Exhibition Fund, RJR Nabisco Exhibition Endowment Fund, and USI Insurance Services.