The Indian traders came to Durban with practically nothing, but their willingness and determination to work, contributed to the development of the country and also enabled them to increase their standards of living.
In the one hundred and twenty years since 1860 when the first members of the Indian community arrived in South Africa, the economy has developed from a poor, agriculturally based system to a highly sophisticated structure built largely on the mining and manufacturing sectors. .
The intention in this paper is to investigate, through specific examples of
sculptures by the Durban born Mary Agnes Stainbank (1899-1996), the
relationship between an indigenous South African iconography, and a Europeanbased