Born in 1955 and based most of his life in Cape Town, Emile Maurice was an artist, curator, author educator and Nation builder. He received an Advanced Diploma in Fine Art, Michaelis School of Art, University of Cape Town in 1977 and then went to the USA where he obtained his MA graduate degree in art history (Syracuse University, NY), in 1981. In 1995 Maurice was appointed Head of Education at the South African National Gallery (SANG). Emile left SANG in 2000 to take up a position with Heritage Agency where he worked on numerous projects including an exhibition for the Nelson Mandela Gateway to Robben Island, the Alexandra Renewal Project, and the management of the Constitutional Court art collection. Most recently he was Convening the Factory of Arts at UWC's Centre for Humanities Research.
Maurice's work within arts, history and heritage almost always had a social aspect, investigating poverty, peace building and communal space. His primary research interest pertained to the re-writing of South African cultural history with a view to greater equity and representation in the context of colonial and apartheid marginalisation.