Since the inception of the TAXI Art Book series in 2000, David Krut Publishing has been involved with many established and internationally acclaimed writers, academics, educators, artists and designers, who have contributed to the various TAXI books and educational supplements.
Brenda Atkinson, author of TAXI-001 Jo Ractliffe and co-author of the educational supplement
Brenda Atkinson is a cultural writer, art critic and curatorial consultant. Her writing has been published in the Mail and Guardian, the Sunday Independent, Camera Austria and Beaux Arts magazine, amongst others. She received her BA (Hons) degree from the University of Cape Town, and her Masters degree from the University of Chicago. She was the editor of WASH, a bimonthly publication specifically featuring South African artists and writers who has published widely in journals and magazines. In 2002, she published a book on South African artists Robert Hodgins.
Rayda Becker, co-author of TAXI-007 Noria Mabasa
Dr Rayda Becker’s career in the visual arts spans some 30 years. After teaching History of Art at UNISA she switched careers in the late 1980s to become the curator of the University of the Witwatersrand’s Galleries, where she was involved in over 50 exhibitions of which she personally curated twelve. She has written extensively on various aspects of African art and is currently the curator of artworks at Parliament in Cape Town.
Jillian Carman, author of with TAXI-008 Steven Cohen educational supplement
Jillian Carman is an art historian and museologist based in Johannesburg. She was formerly a curator at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. She is currently Honorary Research Fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand and University of Johannesburg’s Research Centre in Visual identities in art and design. Carman has authored and co-authored many books on South African art and artists. Her most recent book, published in 2006, is Uplifting the Colonial Philistine: Florence Phillips and the Making of the Johannesburg Art Gallery.
Kathy Coates, co-author of TAXI-002 Samson Mudzunga
Kathy Coates was born in Leeds, England in 1950 and emigrated to South Africa in 1981. She received her Fine Art degree from Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town and in 1991 took up a post as art lecturer at Giyani College of Education, now the University of Venda. Her focus is on making connections with locally based artists, and integrating their work into university course curricula. She conducted her Master’s research based on the work of five of the Northern Province woodcarvers, including Samson Mudzunga. She is currently Art Educator at Iziko Museums of Cape Town.
Carina Comrie, designer of TAXI-008 Steven Cohen and TAXI-009 Pat Mautloa
Carina Comrie is the owner of Bon-Bon, a specialist Design Consultancy immersed in the heritage, visual arts, way finding and exhibition design sector. In 1996, she completed studying Information and Graphic Design at the University of Pretoria and has worked in the design industry since. Comrie participated in a group exhibition at David Krut Projects in 2008, entitled Drawing Show, Designers and Illustrators and features in an interview in DKP title Graphic Design by Michael MacGarry.
André Croucamp, author of TAXI-006 David Koloane educational supplement and contributor of introduction for TAXI-014 Mmakgabo Mmapula Mmankgato Helen Sebidi.
André Croucamp is a freelance researcher, writer and developer of educational media.
Shaun de Waal, co-author of TAXI-008 Steven Cohen
Shaun de Waal was the Mail and Guardian literary editor from 1991 to 2005 and has been its chief film critic since 1998. He has published a collection of short fiction, These things happen (1996), and the graphic novellette, Jackmarks (1998). His recent publications include Pride: Protest and Celebration and To Have and to Hold: The Making of Same-Sex Marriage in South Africa.
Paul Emmanuel, designer of TAXI-003 Jeremy Wafer, TAXI-004 Santu Mafokeng and TAXI-006 David Koloane
Paul Emmanuel is a Johannesburg-based artist who works in various media, including photography and film. He graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1993 and in 1997 he was awarded the prestigious Ampersand Fellowship, which afforded him a three-month residency in New York. His works are concerned wwith his identity as a young white male living in post-apartheid South Africa He has exhibited widely and has won awards both in South Africa and abroad. Website >>
Lola Frost, author of TAXI-003 Jeremy Wafer
Lola Frost is an artist and lecturer from South Africa who lives and works in London. She has exhibited in many solo and group shows both in South Africa and United Kingdom. Frost has also lectured in art at Technikon Natal and in London. She has written numerous reviews, articles and essays on contemporary South African art, She completed her PhD in Visual Arts at Goldsmiths College, University of London, in 2007.
Philippa Hobbs, author of educational supplements for: TAXI-001 Jo Ractliffe, 002 Samson Mudzunga, 003, 004 Santu Mofokeng, 009 Kagiso Pat Mautloa, 011 Willem Boshoff, 012 Sandile Zulu
Philippa Hobbs has co-authored two books with Elizabeth Rankin on South African art history: Printmaking in a Transforming South Africa (1997) and Rorke’s Drift: Empowering Prints (2003). She has also published three other art educational books, is the editor of MTN’s publication ArtTalk, and is the curator of the MTN Art Collection. She is an artist and printmaker and has exhibited her work in group and solo shows.
Stephen Hobbs, co-author of TAXI-002 Samson Mudzunga
Stephen Hobbs is an artist, writer, curator and cultural manager. He graduated from Wits University with a BAFA (Hons) in 1994. He was the curator of the Market Theatre Galleries (Johannesburg) from 1994 to 2000. Since 2001, he has co-directed the artist collaborative The Trinity Session (www.onair.co.za), the Gallery Premises (closed 2008) at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre and since 2004 has co-produced a number of urban and network focused projects with Marcus Neustetter under the collaborative name Hobbs/Neustetter –UrbaNet.
John Hodgkiss, photographer for many TAXI and other DKP titles
John Hodgkiss is a freelance photographer and designer, working in both the commercial and artistic fields. He specializes in the field of artwork photography for reproduction in books and dissemination via the electronic network. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions locally and abroad and he has been photographing Steven Cohen’s work since 1986.
Ashraf Jamal, author of TAXI-005 Lien Botha and educational supplement
Ashraf Jamal is a writer of cultural essays, short stories and novels. An interdisciplinarian, his major interests include philosophy, literary and maritime studies. He has studied at various universities overseas, including in the UK, USA and Canada and taught at UCT, Stellenbosch, and at the Universities of Malaya (Malaysia) and the Eastern Mediterranean (N. Cyprus). Jamal is the co-author of Art South Africa: The Future Present (David Phillip Publishers); co-editor of Indian Ocean Studies: Social, Cultural and Political Perspectives (Rutledge); and the author of Predicaments of culture in South Africa (Unisia/Brill) and Love Themes for the Wilderness (Kwela/Random House). He received the Sanlam Prize for short fiction for his story, ‘The Shades.’ His current research is on the contemporary moment in South African art. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture at Rhodes University.
Lara Koseff, co-author and designer of TAXI-013 Diane Victor educational supplement and Compendium of TAXI Art Books Educational Supplements.
Lara Koseff is a multimedia designer, artist and writer and was a designer and researcher at David Krut Arts Resource. She obtained a BA Fine Arts in 2005 and a MA in Heritage Studies in 2007 from the University of the Witwatersrand, and completed both degrees cum laude. She currently works at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg.
Juliette Leeb-du Toit, author of TAXI-014 Mmakgabo Mmapula Mmankgato Helen Sebidi
Juliette Leeb-du Toit undertook her graduate studies at universities in Pretoria, Florence, Paris and Kwa-Zulu Natal. Since 1975, she has been a lecturer in the Centre for Visual Arts at the University of KwaZulu Natal, developing courses in African Art, Museum Studies and Contemporary South African Art. She has published extensively, contributing to books and journals on a variety of subjects, including sacred art in Natal, Gerard Bhengu, the Ndaleni Art School, Azaria Mbatha, Trevor Makhoba and landscape in South African art. Her current research focuses on Helen de Leeuw and on dress and fabric in southern Africa. She is currently working on a publication on the work of Azaria Mbatha.
Leora Maltz-Leca, co-author of TAXI-015 Paul Stopforth
Leora Matlz-Leca received her PhD in art history from Harvard in 2008. She is currently assistant professor if contemporary art and visual culture at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work explores, amongst other things, the cross-cultural dimensions of late modernism; art in the African post-colonies; the relationship between the political and the aesthetic; and the thematics of studio process. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Frieze and African Arts. She is currently completing a book entitled William Kentridge: Process as Metaphor and Other Doubtful Enterprises, which examines walking, talking, and the leaps of metaphor.
Judith Mason, co-author of TAXI-015 Paul Stopforth
Judith Mason was born in Pretoria in 1938 and received her BA from the University of the Witwatersrand. She taught history of art and drawing at Wits before deciding, at the age of thirty-seven, to paint full-time. She has also taught at the Medici School in Florence. In the 1970s she met Paul Stopforth who was a colleague and soon a valued friend, confidant and critic. Mason’s work is in many collections, including those of Yale and the Bodleian libraries, and the Constitutional Court of South Africa. She has exhibited widely, and represented South Africa in the thirty-third Venice Biennale. In 2008 the Standard Bank gallery in Johannesburg held a retrospective exhibition of her work. Mason lives and works on the property of The Artists’ Press in Mpumalanga. Her interests are politics, cricket and watching paint dry.
Kate McCrickard, co-author of TAXI-015 Paul Stopforth
Kate McCrickard is the former director of David Krut Projects, New York where she ran an international exhibition programme, exhibiting artists such as Paul Stopforth, El Anatsui, Suzanne McClelland, William Kentridge and Stephen Antonakos. She is now based in Paris where she continues to write, curate and paint whilst looking after her baby daughter. Kate received her MA First Class Honours degree from the University of Edinburgh University, Scotland in 1988. She contributed essays to publications including William Kentridge Flute and catalogues on El Anatasui, Colbert Mashile and Joseph Hart.
Jacki McInnes, co-author and designer of TAXI-013 Diane Victor educational supplement and Compendium of TAXI Art Books Educational Supplements
Jacki McInnes is an artist, arts writer and curator. She obtained a BA Fine Arts cum laude from UNISA in 2001 and a Masters in Fine Arts from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, UCT in 2004. McInnes has staged a number of solo exhibitions in Cape Town and Johannesburg and has participated in group shows both in South Africa and abroad. In 2007, McInnes curated the exhibition, A Legacy of Men, at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in support of the global “16 Days of Activism†campaign against women and child abuse.
Andries Oliphant, author of TAXI-009 Kagiso Pat Mautloa and contributor of introduction for TAXI-014 Mmakgabo Mmapula Mmankgato Helen Sebidi
Andries Oliphant is a poet, writer, academic, critic and arts administrator. He won the Thomas Pringle Award for Short Stories in 1991 and the Book Journalist of the Year Award in 1998. He has served as chairperson of a number of arts and culture organisations, including the Arts and Culture Trust, the South African Writers Association, the National Arts Coalition and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for the Africa Region. He was a special guest of the Swedish Academy at the Novel Prize ceremony in 1998, and in 2000 participated in the first White House Conference on Culture and Diplomacy hosted by Bill Clinton. He has served as the editor for a number of literary journals. He teaches literature and literary theory at the University of South Africa.
Anthea Pokroy, author of TAXI-015 Paul Stopforth educational supplement
Anthea Pokroy is a writer and artist based in Johannesburg. She obtained her BA Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2007 and graduated cum laude. Pokroy works primarily in photography and video, as well as installation and performance. She has taken part in many group exhibitions and award shows since 2005. She is currently researcher and writer at David Krut Publishing, as well as running an artist initiative called Assemblage and working as an artist.
Karen Press, contributor of poetry for TAXI-005 Lien Botha
Karen Press in a South African poet living in Cape Town, who has collaborated with Lien Botha on several projects, often Press’ words flowing alongside the beautiful reproductions of Botha’s work. She is a full-time writer and editor, having published eight collections of poetry, a film script, short stories, as well as educational material and textbooks in the fields of science, mathematics, English and economics. Her published collections include Bird Heart Stoning the Sea/Krotoa’s Story, The Coffee Shop Poems, Echo Location, A Guide to Sea Point for Residents and Visitors and Home.
Adele Prins, designer of TAXI-008 Steven Cohen, TAXI-009 Pat Mautloa, TAXI-010 Deborah Bell, TAXI-011 Willem Boshoff and TAXI-012 Sandile Zulu
Adele Prins is the owner and Creative Director at PR/NS Design, a multidisciplinary, strategic design studio,established in 2003 and  based in Johannesburg. She produces work across media, both in print and digital realms, delivering bespoke graphic solutions. She has a long standing relationship with David Krut Publishing and has designed many TAXI and other DKP titles. Website >>
Elizabeth Rankin, co-author of TAXI-013 Diane Victor
Elizabeth Rankin is Professor of Art History at the University of Auckland. She was Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand from 1982 to 1998 and has contributed to many years of South African art history. Rankin has always had a particular interest in exploring the work of little-known artists who work outside the mainstream of established art institutions, and in media that have been neglected in academic and art-critical literature. Rankin’s publications on sculpture and printmaking include Images of Wood (1989) and Images of Metal (1994), as well as Printmaking in a Transforming South Africa (1997) and Rorke’s Drift: Empowering Prints (2003), both with printmaker Philippa Hobbs. Moving to New Zealand has not diminished Rankin’s interest in South African art, and she continues to write extensively on this subject while also researching and writing on printmaking and sculpture in New Zealand.
Colin Richards, author of TAXI-012 Sandile Zulu
Colin Richards has presented numerous conferences papers and has published widely on South African art both locally and abroad. He has both consulted for and curated several major exhibitions, namely for the First and Second Johannesburg Biennales. For many years he lectured in art criticism, studio practice, and art theory at the Wits School of Arts, until recently moving to lecture at the Michael School of Fine Art in Cape Town. He is also a practicing artist whose work is included in most major South African public collections.
Ruth Sack, author of TAXI-010 Deborah Bell educational supplement
Ruth Sack is a writer and educationalist. She is director of the Imbali Visual Literacy Project, an art teacher-training organisation.
Robyn Sassen, co-author of TAXI-008 Steven Cohen
Robyn Sassen is a freelance arts writer, academic, book artist and printmaker. She holds a BA (Fine Art) degree with a specialisation in Printmaking from the University of the Witwatersrand, an Honours degree with distinction in Art History from the University of South Africa (UNISA) and a Master’s degree with distinction from the University of the Witwatersrand. She has taught contemporary South African art at UNISA, University of Johannesburg and Pretoria University, Rhodes University and the University of the Witwatersrand. Robyn is Arts Editor of the SA Jewish Report. She also writes for several other online and print publications on the visual and performing arts. She was a finalist in South Africa’s Arts and Culture Trust Arts Journalist of the Year Award in 2005. After a solo exhibition in 1998, comprising a broad range of traditional and experimental print works, artists’ books and installations, Robyn has taken part in several group exhibitions, and printmaking and artists’ book exchanges, locally and abroad.
Anne Sassoon, co-author of TAXI-015 Paul Stopforth
Anne Sassoon lives in Jerusalem and is an artist, art reviewer for the Jerusalem Report and curator at the Yakar Gallery. She and her husband, journalist Benjamin Pogrund, left South Africa in 1986 after the closing of the Rand Daily Mail. Sassoon wrote art reviews for the Rand Daily Mail and was a courtroom artist at political trials including the Soweto Students’ trial and the Steve Biko inquest. She did cover illustrations for a series of previously banned booked republished by David Philip. In 1976, Sassoon, David Goldblatt and Barney Simon curated the first exhibition at The Market Theatre Photographers’ Gallery – of unclaimed studio photographs from Diagonal Street. Sassoon’s paintings are included in the Collection of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Johannesburg Art Gallery, the Durban Art gallery, Wits University’s Gertrude Posel Gallery, the Sasol Collection and Pelmama.
Kevin Shenton, designer of TAXI-014 Helen Sebidi
Kevin Shenton is the Design Director at Triple M Design & Advertising, which specialises in book design, book jacket design, fine typography and creative illustration. He has been in the design industry for over 15 years and has designed other DKP titled including, Johannes Phokela, I like my neighbours and William Kentidge Nose.
Pippa Stein, author of TAXI-010 Deborah Bell
Professor Pippa Stein was a writer, academic and educator. She taught at the School of Literature and Language Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg from the mid-1980s. Pippa’s many publications spanned the fields of educational and semiotic theory and practice, as well as art and culture more generally. She passed away in 2008 after losing the battle against cancer.
Kathryn Straughan, co-author of TAXI-007 Noria Mabasa
Kathryn Straughan runs the Leshaba Wilderness Project, which has set up a training programme for Venda sculptors. Noria Mabasa has been teaching and working with artists at Lesheba Wilderness since the middle of 2002, when Straughan interviewed her about her life, her art and her dreams.
Véronique Tadjo, author of TAXI-006 David Koloane
Véronique Tadjo is a writer, poet, novelist, and artist from the Ivory Coast. Tadjo completed her BA degree at the University of Abidjan and her doctorate at the Sorbonne. She received the Literary Prize of L’Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique in 1983 and the UNICEF Prize in 1993.She is the author of many acclaimed works of fiction for adults and children.
Wilhelm van Rensburg, author of TAXI-007 Noria Mabasa educational supplement.
Wilhelm van Rensburg is an art critic, academic and educator at the University of Johannesburg. Van Rensburg has written Art South Africa as well as for Afrikaans newspapers and journals including Die Beeld, Vuka, Finansies en Tegniek, and Insig, He runs a gallery in Johannesburg called Art on Paper.
Roelof van Wyk, designer of TAXI-001 Jo Ractliffe and TAXI-002 Samson Mudzunga
Roelof van Wyk studied Architecture at the University of Pretoria and graduated in 1995 cum laude. He currently works in media, marketing and design and is Creative Head at Trigger Communication, which is part of Isobarand Aegismedia Plc. He is also an artist and has exhibited in solo, group and award shows in Johannesburg since 2004.
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Karen von Veh, co-author of TAXI-013 Diane Victor
Karen von Veh is a senior lecturer in art and design history at the University of Johannesburg. She is Chairperson of the association of South African Visual Arts Historians (SAVAH) and has served on the national council for several years. Her particular interests are in contemporary South African women’s art, gender studies in art history and, lately, the transformation of religious icons in contemporary art. On these topics she has presented many conference papers, both locally and internationally, and contributed articles to local art-history journals, with the most recent publications concentrating on religious iconography in the work of Diane Victor.
Ivan Vladislavic, author of TAXI-011 Willem Boshoff
Ivan Vladislavic a writer and editor and has published works of fiction, including The Restless Supermarket, and the critically acclaimed The Exploded View. The latter was provoked by the work of Joachim Schönfeldt, and extracts from the text were exhibited with Schönfeldt’s images under the title The Model Men. Amongst other prizes of the years, in June 2007 Vladislavic won the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award for Non-fiction for Portrait with Keys.