Louis Maqhubela was born in 1939 in Durban, South Africa. He studied under Cecil Skotnes at the Polly Street Centre, Johannesburg, which moved to the Jubilee Centre, then after moving to London in 1978, at Goldsmiths College and the Slade School of Art.
Polly Street Art Centre in central Johannesburg, which existed roughly between 1952 and 1975 in ethos if not in Polly Street itself, is the subject of the first of The Ampersand Foundation's (TAF) newest initiatives. The Foundation aims to research and document 'previously under-researched South African art history', according to chairman Jack Ginsberg. Elza Miles wrote the main text, Helene Smuts wrote an educational supplement, which slips into the cover, and Paul Emmanuel designed the book.