Edward Paterson

Edward "Ned" Paterson (1895–1974) was a pioneering art teacher in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He is known for founding Cyrene School near Bulawayo, and for introducing the Arts and Crafts style to Africans in both South Africa and Rhodesia. Some of his students were among the first professional African artists in Rhodesia.

Paterson was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and emigrated to South Africa with his family in 1901. He left school young and went to work at fourteen, serving part-time in the Transvaal Scottish Regiment. During World War I his regiment was called up, and Paterson served in the Namibian and East African campaigns before being demobilized in 1918. After the war he was awarded a veteran's scholarship, and went to study at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. Although he possessed a tremendous love of art, Paterson was not sufficiently talented to pursue an art career on his own. He returned to South Africa, joined the Transvaal diocese of the Anglican church in 1924, and completed his religious training in 1928 when he was ordained as a deacon.

Paterson's artistic influence first made itself felt at Grace Dieu, an Anglican high school for Africans near Pietersburg, where he was posted for the 1925 school year. The school had an unusual syllabus that included carpentry and drawing. Paterson introduced the school's workshop students to bas relief carving, which he had learned in art school. This form of carving soon became the school's trademark style, and was continued by a nun called Sister Pauline after Paterson's departure. Before long, the school developed what would become Africa's first art workshop, with students and attached professional carvers producing religious carvings on commission for churches needing furniture and ecclesiastical objects. Ernest Mancoba and Job Kekana, two of South Africa's first professional black artists, emerged from this workshop. The African carvers at the workshop were not given the latitude to create their own designs at the workshop, but were instead given designs and asked to transfer them onto the wood. Paterson supplied many of the designs used at the workshop through the late 1930s as a means of augmenting his small income.

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