Cg'ose Ntcox'o

Cg'ose Ntcox'o (sometimes Xhose Noxo), known as Cgoise (c. 1950 – October 6, 2013) was a Botswana artist.

British Airways ethnic livery based on a design by Cg'ose Ntcox'o

Ntcox'o was a member of the Ncoakhoe tribe of the San people,[1] and was born in the Ghanzi District of Botswana. She was a member of the Kuru Art Project.[2] In the early 1990s some of her work was shown in a gallery in London and seen by representatives of British Airways, who decided to purchase one of her pieces and to use it as the basis for a design in their ethnic livery scheme. A representative for the airline traveled to Africa to see her; in her telling, she was handed "a piece of paper and told...to make a cross". Despite the fact that she was illiterate, this transaction was held to be binding and to have caused her to transfer the rights to her work.[3] She received 12,000 pula for her work. At the time her husband was ill with tuberculosis and her daughter was unemployed, and she was responsible for supporting a large family.[4]

Ntcox'o's work is said to have once enraged Margaret Thatcher when it was shown in the United Kingdom.[5] During her career she collaborated with a group of other San artists from the Kuru Art Project on the publication of Qauqaua, an artists' book published in Johannesburg in 1996.[6] In 1999 she was one of eight artists, four from the Kalahari and four from New Mexico, to participate in a cultural exchange with the University of New Mexico in which they would create a suite of lithographs upon the subject of tricksters in folklore.[7] She is represented in the collections of the Portland Museum of Art[8] and the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, which displays her lithograph Jujubu and Nxam Veldfood in its City and County Government Building.[9] In 2004 her work appeared on a postage stamp issued by Botswana, one of a set of four depicting works by contemporary artists; others represented in the set included Nxaedom Qhomatca and Qgoma Ncokg'o.[10][11]

Late in life Ntcox'o was taken in by fellow artist Coex'ae Qgam, with whom she lived until the latter's death.[5] Ntcox'o herself died of a stroke,[2] leaving almost no estate.[12]