Hilda Bernstein (1915 – 2006)

Biography: Hilda Bernstein was a British-born author, artist, and an activist against apartheid and for women’s rights. She emigrated to South Africa at the age of 18 years and became active in politics. She married fellow activist Lionel ‘Rusty’ Bernstein in March 1941, and together they played prominent roles in the struggle to end Apartheid in South Africa. After her husband was tried and acquitted in the Rivonia Trial in 1964, government harassment forced them to flee. They lived in Britain for some years where she further established herself internationally as a speaker, writer, and artist. She returned with her husband to South Africa in 1994 for the South African election in which fellow activist Nelson Mandela was elected President. She died at the age of 91 in Cape Town, South Africa.
She began work as an artist in 1972 and her etchings, drawings and paintings were exhibited at the Royal Academy and featured in many solo and group exhibitions in the United Kingdom and South Africa.