The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Horizontally oriented oil painting depicting abstracted, nude, round-limbed and bodied figures with green, blue, orange, red, and cream skin tones spread evenly across a black background, red streaks of blood dripping down from severed heads and limbs, sometimes into vials. At the center sits a grave-like box with a cross laid over a white figure within and a blue cross standing above, and over which straddles a skeleton. Many figures bear rows of white teeth.

Fountain of Blood

1961

Malangatana Ngwenya

(Mozambican, 1936–2011)
Africa, Mozambique, 20th century
oil on fiberboard
Framed: 119.4 x 147.3 cm (47 x 58 in.)
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd H. Ellis Jr. 2012.67
© Malangatana Ngwenya / DALRO, Johannesburg / ARS, NY
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Fountain of Blood was featured in the 1962 First International Congress of Culture exhibition, a major festival that showcased African art in Europe, and was one of Ngwenya's first exhibited works outside Mozambique.

Description

Born in Mozambique under Portuguese rule, Malangatana Ngwenya's work focuses on the clash between local Mozambican traditions and European colonialism. His highly expressive paintings often comprise dense compositions packed with religious and mythological symbolism and tormented figures—a response to the violence he witnessed. In Fountain of Blood he incorporates a local myth: when one group moves into another people's land, their spirits battle. Ngwenya's pro-independence political views resulted in the artist's imprisonment for 18 months in 1964, contributing to his national reputation as a political artist and supporter of colonial resistance.
  • 1961–1964
    collection of the artist
    1964
    Malangatana Goenha Valente (wife of the artist), sold to Lloyd H. Ellis Jr.
    2012
    Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Solon, OH, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    2012–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Malangatana, and Júlio Navarro. Malangatana Valente Ngwenya. translated from the Portuguese by Harriet C. McGuire, Zita C. Nunez and William P. Rougle. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota, 2003. Mentioned pp. 9-15
    Exhibitions on the occasion of the First International Congress of African Culture. Salisbury: National Gallery of Rhodesia, 1962. Reproduced, cat. 322
    African-American Institute. African Art Today: Four Major Artists. New York: African-American Institute, 1974. Mentioned pp. 5-6
    Morrill, Rebecca, Simon Hunegs, and Chika Okeke-Agulu. African Artists: From 1882 to Now. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2021.
    "New Take on the New: A comprehensive reinstallation of the galleries of contemporary art offers fresh viewpoints on the art of our time.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 61, no. 2 (Spring 2021): 4-9. Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 8.
  • Contemporary Installation. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer).
    Malangatana: Mozambique Modern. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (organizer) (March 21-November 15, 2020) https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9169/malangatana-mozambique-modern.
  • {{cite web|title=Fountain of Blood|url=false|author=Malangatana Ngwenya|year=1961|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2012.67