In 2012
Gool met a fine artist whose work he admired, called Richard Scott. Scott has a very distinctive pop art style, with direct bold lines and hard colour, which Gool felt may lend itself to Tutu’s vividness and joy. The pair discussed collaborating on a project in which Scott would interpret some of Gool’s photographs of Tutu in Scott’s signature style.
In 2013
Gool had a photo exposition at Pop International Art Galleries in New York. Jeff Jaffe, owner of the gallery, introduced Benny Gool to an art collector based in The Netherlands. Gool explained to him that he wanted to do something special with his photo archive with at that time more than 60.000 pictures.
They came up with the idea to create something that was never produced before, to honor Tutu, Gool and Scott. Now the Tutu Art Box has been created in coorporation with Gool and Scott. The story of the Humanrights in context with the person behind the world peace leader Desmond Tutu.
The project was named Black, white, red and yellow, a playfully loaded word construct that the Archbishop has regularly used over the years, which also speaks to Scott’s primary palette.
The project team approached the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, and Archbishop and Mrs. Tutu, to brief them on the idea. Scott produced the paintings, and on their completion Tutu visited his studio to sign and stamp them. The original paintings and the soft launch of the Tutu artbox were privately exhibited at the Archbishop and Mrs. Tutu’s 60th wedding anniversary celebration at the Cape Town City Hall in July 2015 but have never been placed on the market until now.
A portion of the sales of the project will be donated to the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.