Unconquerable Spirit: George Stow's History Painting of the San

George Stow was a Victorian man of many parts—poet, historian, ethnographer, artist, cartographer, and prolific writer. A geologist by profession, he became acquainted, through his work in the field, with the extraordinary wealth of rock paintings in the caves and shelters of the South African interior. Enchanted and absorbed by them, Stow set out to create a record of this creative work of the people who had tracked and marked the South African landscape decades and centuries before him.

Unconquerable Spirit reveals the scope and the beauty of his labors. Stow’s paintings are more than just copies of what he found on the rocks. They are interpretations of the art of the San, informed by his own understanding of a particularly turbulent time in South African history and his sense of the tragic demise of the San way of life. This book celebrates his pioneering achievement and reminds us, too, of the richness of the imaginative universe of the San. 

Pippa Skotnes is professor of fine art and director of the Lucy Lloyd Archive, Resource and Exhibition Centre (LLAREC). She has published essays on the rock art of the San and is the author and editor of several books, including Sound from the Thinking Strings, Miscast: Negotiating the Presence of the Bushmen, and Heaven's Things.