Art Collection

Art Collection
contents
ELLERMAN ART COLLECTION
About The Ellerman House Art Collection
Gregoire Boonzaier Thomas William Bowler Dorothy Kay William Kentridge Francois Krige Erik Laubscher Maggie Laubser John Meyer Pieter Hugo Naude George Pemba Jacob Hendrik Pierneef Alexis Preller Irma Stern Maud Sumner Maurice van Essche Jean Welz Pieter Wenning Ellerman House is distinguished from other fine
hotels in South Africa by the Ellerman House
Art collection. The grand collection of fine art is
based on the sound principle of acquiring works of
unquestionable quality. The owners have spent the
last three decades assembling a substantial collection
of the best South African artwork. The originals
span from the turn of the last century to current day
works - from the 1910 Volschenk of an undeveloped
Camps Bay, to the contemporary new art forms of
Vusi Khumalo.
While the initial emphasis was on a collection of
Cape paintings, as the collection grew, so did the
scope. It now encompasses an intriguing cross section
of genres and subject matter, which represent an
overview of South Africa over the last hundred years.
December 2009 dates the birth of Ellerman
Contemporary, our contemporary art gallery hidden
away under the manicured lawns of the lower terrace.
This space was created to expose guests to the
immense talent of South African contemporary artists
and their work. Ever evolving, the contemporary
collection rotates throughout the year allowing guests
to explore new talent in and amongst well respected
and established South African contemporary artists.
Guests are invited to take the Ellerman House Art
Tour within the public places of Ellerman House and
Ellerman Contemporary Gallery.
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ELLERMAN CONTEMPORARY
Anton Kannemeyer
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Cameron Platter 21
Diane Victor22
Georgina Gratrix
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Kate Gottgens24
Kevin Brand25
Mary Sibande26
Norman Catherine
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Paul du Toit
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Phillemon Hlungwane
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Strijdom van der Merwe
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Terry Kurgan31
Wayne Barker32
Willem Strydom33
Glossary34-35
Ellerman House Art Collection
GREGOIRE BOONZAIER
Gregoire Boonzaier was born in Cape Town in 1909. He is
the son of the political cartoonist, DC Boonzaier. In 1932
he set up his own studio in Cape Town and in 1934, as a
result of a successful exhibition, he was able to finance a
study trip to London. He studied at Heatherley’s School
of Art and the Central School of Art in London.
In 1937 he returned to South Africa. He travelled extensively in the platteland, exhibiting and teaching under the
auspices of the Department of Adult Education. In 1945
he was a Foundation member of the SAAA representing
this body as a Trustee of the SA National Gallery for six
years.
In 1959 he was awarded the Medal of Honour for Painting
by the SA Akademie. Boonzaier was the subject of a monograph, “Gregoire Boonzaier”, by Dr FP Scott in 1964.
In 1978 Potchefstroom University honoured the artist
in threefold fashion with simultaneous presentation of a
prestige retrospective exhibition, a commercial exhibition
of current work and publication of his first-ever portfolio
of linocuts – six prints in the theme “old Cape”. He is
well known for his paintings of the coloured area “District
Six”, before the areas was demolished. In 1980 Boonzaier
was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of
The Orange Free State.
Right
WASHER WOMAN, BOKAAP
Oil on canvas
430 mm (wide) x 340 mm (high)
THOMAS WILLIAM BOWLER
Thomas Bowler was born in England in 1812 and died
in 1869, at the age of 57. Essentially a landscape painter,
Bowler was a self-taught artist. He became assistant
astronomer to Sir T. Maclear in the Cape before embarking
on a career as an artist and drawing teacher. Bowler
published views of South African scenery and exhibited
examples of his work. Mainly countryside and town
scenes in watercolor and characterised by small figures as
well as seascapes. It is interesting that between 1836 and
1838 he lived on Robben Island as a tutor to the children
of Captain Richard Wolfe.
Right
WRECK OF BARQUE ROYAL ALBERT
IN TABLE BAY
Oil on board
600 mm (wide) x 500 mm (high)
THOMAS WILLIAM BOWLER
Right
TABLE BAY
Oil on board
400 mm (wide) x 270 mm (high)
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE
William Kentridge was born in 1955 and lives in
Johannesburg with his wife and children.
In 1976 he graduated from the University of the
Witwatersrand with majors in Politics and African
Studies. Kentridge gained international recognition for
his distinctive animated short films, and for the charcoal
drawings he makes in producing them. He has worked in
theatre for many years, initially as a designer and actor,
and more recently as a director. Whilst he has throughout
his career moved between film, drawing and theatre, his
primary activity remains drawing – and he sometimes
conceives his theatre and film work as an expanded form
of drawing.
In May 2002 Kentridge was given an Honorary Doctorate
in Fine Art at the Maryland Institute of Contemporary
Art, Baltimore.
Right
DUTCH IRIS
Mixed media on paper.
Monotype 1 colour etching
& aquatint in 17 colours
800 mm (wide) x 1200 mm (high)
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE
Top Right
GROWING OLD
Etching
320 mm (wide) x 290 mm (high)
Bottom Right
PREPARING FOR THE DAY
Etching
320 mm (wide) x 290 mm (high)
FRANÇOIS KRIGE
François Krige was born in Uniondale in 1913 and died in
1994 at the age of 81.
He studied at the Michaelis School in Cape Town
under HV Meyerowitz, then in Spain under Vasquez
Diaz, he also completed sessions at Opsomer School
in Antwerp and then completed his studies in Florence
doing mural painting.
Krige went to school in Stellenbosch and attended art
classes conducted by Ruth Prowse. At 15 he entered the
Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town where he
studied life drawing and sculpture.
In 1934 he won a painting competition which allowed him
to spend three years in Europe. He worked in Spain and
attended an art school in Florence for a short period. He
traveled extensively and the time spent in Spain is captured
in his brother Uys’s Sol y Sombra for which Krige provided
the provocative illustrations. Over a 30 year period Krige
painted and sketched the Bushmen, returning a number of
times to the Kalahari to live with these hunter-gatherers.
Krige espoused no theories about art and, if he had
spoken out, he would probably have insisted only on a
“romantic” truth to the subject and the self. His art was
a way of life, not a profession. His paintings rank among
the finest South African paintings of the second half of
the 20th century.
Right
PEACHES IN A BOWL
Oil on board
520 mm (wide) x 350 mm (high)
ERIK LAUBSCHER
Erik Laubscher was born in Tulbagh in 1927.
He studied at the Continental School of Art in Cape
Town and studied portrait art in London. A painter of
landscapes, seascapes, still life, figures, portraits and
abstract pictures, he worked in oil, acrylic, watercolour,
ink, pencil and charcoal.
During the 1950s and 1960s he worked as a paint
consultant to various firms. In 1966 he was the first
South African to beawarded the Carnegie Scholarship,
through which he spent three months on a study tour
of the USA. In 1970, he founded the Ruth Prowse Art
Centre in Woodstock, Cape Town, which became the
Ruth Teachers Association. He has also been a selector
for a number of large national and international
exhibitions.
Right
AUTUMN WHEATLANDS,
MALMESBURY
Oil on canvas
1190 mm (wide) x 810 mm (high)
ERIK LAUBSCHER
Right
VIEWS FROM MATZIKAMA MOUNTAINS
Oil on canvas
1190 mm (wide) x 810 mm (high)
MAGGIE LAUBSER
Maggie Laubser was born in the Malmesbury District of
the Cape in 1886. She died in the Strand in 1973, at the
age of 87.
She was elected a South African Society of Artists
(SASA) member in 1907, long before she became a noted
modernist. Her first recorded participation on a SASArelated exhibition was in a joint show with the SAFAA in
1910, when she entered a work entitled Hibiscus, on offer
at 3 guineas. There is no further record of her exhibiting
with SASA until 1922, when she returned briefly to Cape
Town from abroad. It was then that she entered her Wild
Poppies and Garda Bay in Autumn. They had been painted
over the previous two years, when, after her studies at the
Slade School in London, she had visited Germany, and
then the shores of Lake Garda in Italy.
The two works showed her already schooled in the
principles of modernism. Laubser went to Germany
soon after the 1922 exhibition, where she was
encouraged by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. In 1924, she
returned to SA to live near Klipheuwel in the Cape. In
her new phase in SA, her work focused on portraits of
African and Indian men and women.
Right
SEAGULL
Oil on board
500 mm (wide) x 390 mm (high)
MAGGIE LAUBSER
Right
UNTITLED (DHOW)
Oil on board
520 mm (wide) x 440 mm (high)
JOHN MEYER
John Meyer was born in Bloemfontein in 1942
and regularly attends dinners at Ellerman House
showcasing his paintings.
He studied at the Johannesburg Technical College
School of Art, before joining an advertising agency. In
1967 Meyer settled in London where he continued his
studies in art while working as a freelance illustrator.
He subsequently pursued an international career as an
artist, best known for his portraits of distinguished
personages in Africa, Europe and the United States.
Meyer is regarded as the leading figure in the hyperrealist movement in Southern Africa. Decidedly
contemporary in his vision and a proponent of
modernism in all its guises, Meyer has a considered
commitment to representational painting. He is
concerned with the complexities of visual perception
and their solutions. His paintings are not mere
representations of existing places and things, but exist
as indelible retrospection, such as total recall.
Right
HEX RIVER
Oil on canvas
1530 mm (wide) x 1150 mm (high)
JOHN MEYER
Right
BLACK SOUTH EASTER III
Oil on canvas
1220 mm (wide) x 920 mm (high)
PIETER HUGO NAUDÉ
Pieter Hugo Naudé was born in 1869 in the Worcester
district, Cape Province and died in 1941 in Worcester,
Cape Province.
Naudé was born on the farm Aan-de-Doorns, his
second name by which he is known to the public, was
his mother’s family name. After schooling at Over Hex
and Worcester he returned to the farm; his talent was
recognised and encouraged, notably by Olive Schreiner.
In 1889 he went with her to Europe; she provided an
introduction to Havelock Ellis, who recommended
the Slade School. Following his studies in London and
Europe, he worked for a short while in Italy. In 1896
he returned to South Africa and painted on the farm,
mainly portraiture; he also travelled by caravan to
Namaqualand, Drakensberg and as far as the Victoria
Falls, on his way he completed numerous silverpoint
drawings. In 1902 he joined The South African Society
of Artist’s and exhibited with this society. Between
1904 and 1913 he returned to Worcester where, he
built his home and studio (preserved as The Hugo
Naudé Art Centre) he became known as “Artists
Naudé”. Returned to London and studied etching at
the Kings Road School. In 1913 he journeyed via the
Following on next slide
Right
SPRINGTIME IN NAMAQUALAND
Oil on board
430 mm (wide) x 290 mm (high)
PIETER HUGO NAUDÉ
East Coast to Jerusalem, followed by a further year
of study in Munich. In 1915 he married Julia Brown
of Cape Town. In 1917 he was included in Roworth’s
Essay “Landscape Art in South Africa” in the Studio
Publication “Art of the British Empire Overseas”.
After his marriage he seldom left Worcester, except
on painting expeditions; he gave his interest and
service to the town. A devoted gardener, he created
the Worcester Garden of Remembrance, a memorial
to the dead of World War I. He was also very active
in the scouting movement. In 1935 he was presented
with Scout Medal of Merit. In 1936 he designed the
rockeries for the Empire Exhibition in Johannesburg.
In 1937 he painted a view of the Hex Valley as a gift
from Worcester Chamber of Commerce to South
Africa House, London. In 1939 he was awarded the
Medal of Honour for Painting by the South African
Academie. On his death in 1941 he left his home and
paintings to the town of Worcester.
Right
SPRINGTIME IN NAMAQUALAND
Oil on board
430 mm (wide) x 290 mm (high)
GEORGE PEMBA
George Pemba was born in 1912 and died in 2001 at
the age of 89.
His work embraces portraiture, landscape, group
compositions and genre works as well as historical
subjects based on memory or his imagination. It has
been observed that his work only really emerged from
provincial obscurity as apartheid began to crumble.
Although he had exhibited for many years, and had
been included in The Neglected Tradition exhibition
in 1988, he only really came to the attention of a
largely white art-buying public when the Everard Read
Gallery in Johannesburg exhibited his work in 1991.
The 1991 exhibition had foregrounded Pemba’s oils,
but it was not until 1993 that the showing of a cache
of his earlier watercolours at the Highbury Gallery
revealed his even more impressive artistic powers.
The watercolours painted between 1933 and 1947 are
among his very best works. This raises interest around
the choice that he made, allegedly prompted by Gerard
Sekoto, to switch to oil painting.
Right
TOWNSHIP DANCE
Oil on board
380 mm (wide) x 300 mm (high)
GEORGE PEMBA
Right
END OF THE ROAD
Oil on board
520 mm (wide) x 350 mm (high)
JACOB HENDRIK PIERNEEF
Jacob Hendrik Pierneef was born in 1886 in Pretoria
and died in 1957, at the age of 71.
Pierneef started his high school career at the
Staatsmodelschool in Pretoria and it was here that
he started his art classes. In 1901 the Pierneef family
moved to the Netherlands where he continued his
schooling. This experience brought Pierneef into
contact with the works of the old masters and it had a
lasting impression on him. He studied part time at the
Rotterdamse Kunstakademie.
It was only in 1902 that Pierneef showed his works
on an exhibition for the first time. It was a group
exhibition with Anton van Wouw and Hugo Naudé
and was visited by various well-known personalities.
In 1920 Pierneef had a major exhibition in Pretoria
with more than 300 works in various mediums. He
received very favourable reviews. In 1925 he had an
exhibition in the Netherlands and it was especially the
Bushmen drawings that sparked great interest.
In 1929 Pierneef was commissioned to do the 28
panels for the inside of the new Johannesburg Station
Building which kept him occupied for the next three
years and are seen as one of the highlights in his
career. In 1933 he received his second commission to
do seven murals for South Africa House in London,
which he finished in 1934.
Right
A WINTER BUSHVELD LANDSCAPE
Oil on canvas
600 mm (wide) x 460 mm (high)
JACOB HENDRIK PIERNEEF
Right
MONT-AUX-SOURCES
Oil on canvas
640 mm (wide) x 1560 mm (high)
Far Right
SUMMER BUSHVELD
Oil on board
680 mm (wide) x 550 mm (high)
ALEXIS PRELLER
Alexis Preller was born in Pretoria in 1911 and died in
1975 at the age of 64.
He studied at Westminster School of Art in London
under Mark Gertler and furthered his studies at
Grande Chaumiere in Paris. Preller was educated at
Pretoria Boy’s High School, where he played an active
role in the schools’ theatrical ventures. Encouraged
by his life-long friend Norman Eaton, he set off for
London where JH Pierneef, who was working on
the South African House murals at the time, advised
him to enroll at Westminster School. There with the
guidance and encouragement of Gertler, he made the
irrevocable choice of painting as his life’s career.
His early works were very emotional, full of strong
colours and distortion, all of which were reminiscent
of Van Gogh. On return from further studies in
Paris he camped for a while in Swaziland, painting
continuously then exhibiting in Johannesburg where
his work was referred to as the “South African
Gauguin”.
Right
A STILL LIFE WITH LAMPS
Oil on canvas
1000 mm (wide) x 850 mm (high)
IRMA STERN
Irma Stern was born in 1894 to German Jewish parents
at Schweitzer-Renecke, a small town in the Transvaal.
She died in 1966, at the age of 72.
In 1902, after the Anglo-Boer War, her Parents took
her to Germany and thus began a pattern of regular
travel, which was to characterise and influence Irma’s
development as an artist and individual and continue
throughout her adult life. Irma studied in Berlin and
Weimer and met the Expressionist, Max Pechstein in
1916 who encouraged and influenced her work and
helped arrange her first exhibition in Berlin. In 1926
she married Dr Johannes Prinz, her former tutor. A
house named “The Firs” in Rosebank, Cape Town
remained her home until her death. This house became
the Irma Stern Museum in 1971. Three of the rooms
are furnished as she arranged them.
Stern traveled extensively in Europe and explored
Southern Africa, Zanzibar and the Congo. These trips
provided a wide range of
subject matter for her paintings.
Right
THE COTTON PICKERS
Oil on canvas
890 mm (wide) x 1020 mm (high)
IRMA STERN
Right
THE COTTON PICKERS
Oil on canvas
890 mm (wide) x 1020 mm (high)
MAUD SUMNER
Maud Sumner was born in Johannesburg in 1902 and
died in 1957 at the age of 55.
She was educated at Rodean School in Johannesburg.
Although anxious to become an artist she was persuaded
by her family to first undertake academic studies. On
coming down from Oxford in 1925 she began art
training in London, teaching at a boy’s school. She
was ill at ease in art schools and in 1926 Maud went
to Paris, where Naum Aronson advised her to study
sculpture. After a short time she returned to painting.
In 1931 during a Christmas visit to Eathorpe Park,
Warwickshire, her father’s family home, she painted
a series of watercolour landscapes which provided
the content of her first one-man exhibition. Sumner
moved to London in 1939, but returned to South
Africa in 1941 where she worked in Johannesburg until
1946. She had sixteen one-man exhibitions; completed
numerous portraits and figure-studies, but in terms of
style she seemed to be marking time. Between 1947 and
1953, Sumner returned to Paris while also maintaining
a studio in London. There was a radical adjustment
of her style; a period of geometrical analysis of her
subjects, planimetric semi-abstract compositions and
intensification of colour.
Following on next slide
Right
UNTITLED
Oil on board
360 mm (wide) x 450 mm (high)
MAUD SUMNER
In 1953 she flew to Israel, the experience of flight and
the desert-land she visited had considerable influence
on her subsequent expression – her forms became
simpler – her colour softened. Her religious feelings
deepened and she painted a number of sacred subjects
as well as carrying out commissions for Church art.
During 1962–63 she spent more time at her home in
Johannesburg, working in Paris for only part of the
year. In 1965 she visited the Namib Desert in the
then South West Africa. Space and silence became
the primary theme of her painting and forms began
to dissolve into uninterrupted stretches of colour.
Always intelligent, her work has become increasingly
emotional in later years. Sumner’s paintings are
represented in every public collection in South Africa
as well as being represented in a number of overseas
public collections.
Right
GAANSBAAI
Oil on board
530 mm (wide) x 440mm (high)
MAURICE VAN ESSCHE
Maurice van Essche was born in Antwerp, Belgium in
1906 and died in 1977 at the age of 71.
As a painter of portraits, figures, landscapes, still life
and genre scenes, Maurice worked in oil, gouache,
watercolour and he also drew.
He worked as a freelance cartoonist, a lecturer at the
Witwatersrand Technical College, and was Dean of
the Faculty of Arts at the University of Cape Town.
During his life he lived in Antwerp, Belgium, Paris, the
Belgian Congo of Zaire and South Africa.
Right
PORTRAIT OF LADY IN MOURNING
Oil on board
390 mm (wide) x 490 mm (high)
MAURICE VAN ESSCHE
Right
THE HARLEQUIN
Oil on canvas
500 mm (wide) x 600 mm (high)
JEAN WELZ
Jean Welz was born in Salzburg in 1900, the eldest of
five children. His father and grandfather were skilled
craftsmen, framers and guilders in Austria at the time
of the Emperor Franz Josef.
As a child he showed a natural talent for music and
drawing. After completing his classical education he
found himself with a choice of a career as an opera
singer or as an architect. He chose the latter and
qualified as an architect in Vienna, he then settled in
Paris in 1942. Here he began his professional career
designing houses in L’Esprit Nouveau and worked
with Adolf Loos, Robert Mallet Stevens and Le
Corbusier. He married young Danish journalist, Inger
Christensen and the first of his five sons was born.
To the genuine work of art, Welz applied the term
“image”, saying that during the Renaissance this image
originated almost spontaneously, but in our arid age an
artist had to strive for it; even then it came as a gift.
The art critic FL Alexander said that Welz wrestled
with his art like Jacob of old with the angel. There is a
never ending tussle from which the artist shrinks, but
towards which
his vocation always forces him, the challenge can be
met only by a courageous spirit.
Right
STILL LIFE WITH MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
Oil on board
850 mm (wide) x 880 mm (high)
JEAN WELZ
Right
NUDE
Oil on canvas
680 mm (wide) x 900 mm high
PIETER WENNING
Pieter Willem Frederik Wenning was born in 1873 in
The Hague and died in 1921 in Pretoria.
He lived in South Africa from 1905. Wenning was the
son of an art master living in Leeuwarden, Holland.
He was a pupil at the Rijks Hoogere Burgerschool,
Leeuwarden, where he was taught and encouraged
by the art master, Bubberman. Thereafter, he had
no further training and from 1905 until 1909, he
painted and drew scenes around Pretoria, using
watercolour and crayon. In 1909 he began painting
in oil and painted 300 to 400 works, mainly between
1916 and 1921. He was well known for his landscapes,
frequently incorporating homesteads. He painted
street scenes, especially of the Malay Quarter as well
as still life, portraits, figures and genre paintings. He
worked in pencil, charcoal and pen and ink. From
1913 he produced a large number of etchings on his
own press. Wenning was a friend of DC Boonzaaier,
whose collection of oriental objets d’art influenced
him and appeared in his paintings.
From 1873 to 1905 he lived in Holland, where he
worked as a foreign correspondent for Hollandsch
Ijzeren Spoorweg Maatschappij, and visited England,
Scotland, France, Switzerland and Germany. He also
visited Tenerife, Mozambique and Zanzibar. From
1917 to 1921 he lived in Cape Town.
Right
FARM WITH LARGE TREES
Oil on board
450 mm (wide) x 280 mm (high)
PIETER WENNING
Right
THE SHEPHERD
Oil on board
340 mm (wide) x 380 mm (high)
ELLERMAN HOUSE & VILLA
Ellerman House has spectacular views over the Atlantic Ocean, irresistibly charming
staff and an art & wine collection that will leave you breathless. 9 bedrooms and
2 suites in the hotel, as well as the contemporary Villa and Spa next door. Best in
South African hospitality in true Relais & Chateaux style, guests just can’t keep
away. Ellerman House is the place to stay in Africa’s southernmost city.
Ellerman Contemporary
ANTON KANNEMEYER
Anton Kannemeyer was Born in 1967 he grew up in the
cartoon like parody of Transvaal working class suburbia
and was educated at Linden High School. He graduated
cum laude for both his honours and masters degrees in
Fine Arts from the University of Stellenbosch. He went
on to lecture at the University of Pretoria, the Witwatersrand Technicon and then as a senior lecturer at Stellenbosch. Early in 2006 he resigned to work as a full time
artist. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions,
most of them international; and has had a number of
solo shows, notably at The Jack Shainman Gallery in New
York, Art on Paper Gallery in Johannesburg and at the
Michael Stevenson gallery in Cape Town. Anton Kannemeyer has also curated several comic exhibitions in South
Africa and Europe.
Right
I LOVE THE WHITE MIDDLE CLASS…
Acrylic on Canvas
120 cm (wide) x 120 cm (high)
CAMERON PLATTER
Cameron Platter (born 1978 Johannesburg) lives and
works in Shaka’s Rock, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He
studied at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of
Cape Town (BAFA). His work is an intoxicating vision
of Good vs. Evil, documenting contemporary morality
through the telling of simple stories drawn from the
media, TV, cinema, art, history, pornography, war and
peace, politics, music, and religion. Platter works in the
time-consuming mediums of pencil crayon drawing, video
animation, and carved sculpture to create comedy-noir,
interactive installations filled with sex, irony, cynicism and
approaching love.
Right
SECRET PLANS AND CLEVER TRICKS
Pencil Crayon on Paper
110 cm (wide) x 110 cm (high)
DIANE VICTOR
Diane Victor, renowned artist and printmaker who has
established herself as a major figure in South Africa and
internationally, was born in Witbank, South Africa. Known
for her highly satirical and visceral social commentary of
contemporary South African politics, Victor embraces
taboo and controversy in her prints and drawings to depict
transition in South Africa after apartheid and the lingering
racial divide, corruption, and gender inequity that continue
to haunt the political environment.
Victor received her BA Fine Arts Degree from the
University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, in 1986.
In addition to graduating with distinction and winning
various awards, Victor also became the youngest recipient
of the prestigious Volkskas Atelier Award in 1988.
From 1990 to the present, Victor is a part-time lecturer,
teaching drawing and printmaking, at various South
African institutions.
Right
UNTITLED (PIG)
Smoke on Paper
42cm (wide) x 58cm (wide)
GEORGINA GRATRIX
Born in Mexico City (1982), Cape Town based artist
Georgina Gratrix’s creative output includes drawing,
printmaking and painting with a primary focus on
portraiture. Her subject matter ranges from Hollywood
‘party-girls’ to re-mixing Old Masters. Drawing inspiration
from both the sacrosanct icons of high art and vibrant
popular culture, Gratrix uses portraiture to examine the
cult of celebrity, aesthetic hierarchies within art history,
and the role of painting within contemporary practice.
Her work is included in the collection of the South African
National Gallery, as well as numerous private collections.
Right
LIRA
Oil on Fabriano
130 cm diameter
KATE GOTTGENS
Using old, found photographs featuring family gatherings,
backyard rituals, and kids at play, Gottgens manipulates
the image in such a way as to have us wondering: What are
the myths behind the veil of our daily lives? What truth is
buried beneath the image of a happy family group? And
how did we, as children, adapt to the forces of the world
we found ourselves in?
In painterly strategies of dripping, bleeding and blurring
colours, Gottgens continues to engage with the concerns
of contemporary painting, creating works that merge the
familiar with the mysterious and give life to the magic, joys
and sorrows of growing up.
Right
BONE BY BONE
Oil on canvas
84 cm (wide) x 60 cm (high)
KEVIN BRAND
Kevin Brand was born in Cape Town in 1953 and studied
Art, majoring in sculpture at the Michaelis School of Fine
Art, UCT. Graduating in 1981, he became known for his
sculptural installations of the 1980’s and 90’s. Brand’s
oeuvre from that period was primarily concerned with
political subject matter, and is regarded to be among the
best works of art produced in South Africa from that
period. Kevin Brand’s work is distinguished by his use
of non-traditional sculptural materials to make strong
but increasingly nuanced comments on aspects of South
African social history and life. His particular interest is to
make work that is accessible to the larger community, and
locate it in a public arena.
“Through my work, I am trying to understand why I exist.
It’s about shedding baggage, working through issues to
find out what makes you want to live.”
Right
WOMAN IN POLKA DOT DRESS
Metal, wood, enamel paint
150 cm (wide) x 150 cm (high)
MARY SIBANDE
Mary Sibande, born 1982, lives and works in Johannesburg.
She obtained a B-Tech degree in Fine Arts at the University
of Johannnesburg in 2007.
In Sibande’s practice as an artist, she employs the human
form as a vehicle through painting and sculpture, to
explore the construction of identity in a postcolonial South
African context, but also attempts to critique stereotypical
depictions of women, particularly black women in our
society. The body, for Sibande, and particularly the
skin, and clothing is the site where history is contested
and where fantasies play out. Centrally, she looks at the
generational disempowerment of black women and in
this sense her work is informed by postcolonial theory,
through her art making. In her work, domestic setting acts
as a stage where historical psycho-dramas play out.
Right
I’M A LADY
Digital print on cotton rag matte paper
60 cm (wide) x 90 cm (high)
MARY SIBANDE
Right
THEY DON’T MAKE THEM
LIKE THEY USE TO
Digital print on cotton rag matte paper
60 cm (wide) x 90 cm (high)
NORMAN CATHERINE
Norman Catherine was born in East London, South
Africa in September 1949. He studied at the East London
Technical School of Art and held his first solo exhibitionin
1969. Shortly after his first exhibition in 1969, Catherine
began collaborating with Walter Battiss on the project
‘Fook Island’.
As both a sculptor and painter, Catherine works in
an assortment of media, ranging from oil, acrylic,
watercolour, and airbrush; as well as wood, fibreglass, wire,
and metal. He incorporates surrealistic elements into his
work, and uses humour with a dark overtone to confront
the horrors of apartheid. In the thirty years spanning his
career, Catherine’s visual trademarks have included roughedged comical and nightmarish forms, rendered in brash
cartoon colours.
Right
FISHMAN
Oil on canvas
120 cm (wide) x 100 cm (high)
PAUL DU TOIT
Paul du Toit is a South African artist who has carved a
unique niche in the international arena. Beyond being
able to access and be exhibited globally, du Toit has
simultaneously continued to create a very personal form
of art that has not adjusted itself to the demands of a
commercial art market. Du Toit’s art is his own; a linear,
phantasmic world that he has created from his mind and
experiences.
Over the years, he has built up a forest of symbols - his
own alphabet of awkward scrawls that spawn off each
other. When he creates a work of art, he retains only
forms that are appropriate. This combined with the
treatment of space and master lines (scratched into wet
paint with sticks) result in a desired unity of composition.
Primary colours are added on top of the impasto and
movement is created by a variation in the dimension of
forms in relation to other elements. His work starts out
with a line(origination) and ends with a black line defining
the pools of colour.
Right
HOMINID LABORATORY
Acrylic on canvas
210 cm (wide) x 130 mm (high)
PHILLEMON HLUNGWANE
Phillemon Hlungwane was born in 1975. He attended the
Hanyani Thom High School and matriculated in 1999.
In 2000 he attended the Johannesburg Art Foundation
Fine Art Course and in the same year obtained his Artist
Proof Studio printmaking certificate. He is presently Coordinator and facilitator of the professional art at the
Artist Proof Studio. He has been involved in teaching
paper making since 1994. Phillemon has completed and
facilitated many wall murals, the most recent being at The
Standard Bank Art Gallery (Picasso in Africa exhibition)
and the mural for Bell Dewar and Hall.
Phillemon comes from a family of artists. He says art
chose him, he did not chose art. His work often depicts
trees and his relationships with the environment.
Right
MINGA VONANI KUXOUGA KA XIGAZA
Print
115 cm (wide) x 85 cm (high)
STRIJDOM VAN DER MERWE
Strijdom Van der Merwe grew up on a farm on the
outskirts of Johannesburg (South Africa). He completed
his fine arts degree in 1984 at Stellenbosch University and
furthered his studies at Hooge School Voor de Kunste,
Utrecht, Holland (where he studied print-making); The
Academy of Art and Architecture and Design, Praha
, Czech Republic and at The Kent Institute of Art and
Design, Canterbury, England. Since 1996 he has worked
full time as a land artist.
As a land artist he uses the materials provided by the
chosen site. Strijdom Van der Merwe’s sculptural forms
take shape in relation to the landscape.
Right
STEEL GATE
TERRY KURGAN
Terry Kurgan is an artist who lives and works in
Johannesburg. Her creative process is driven by a desire
to establish relationships and directly engage with people,
community and place alongside a keen interest in the
confluence of public and private realm issues and spaces.
She particularly enjoys projects that require a contextual
response. These have been sited in spaces as diverse as
a maternity hospital, a popular Johannesburg shopping
mall and a prison, and combine design and spatial
understanding with a new and exciting way of representing
contemporary South African social issues. Kurgan studied
Fine Art in South Africa and the U.S.A, has taught at South
African universities and often consults to media and social
communications companies. She is an active member of
the Joubert Park Project, an energetic artist’s collective
who share a passion for projects in Johannesburg’s inner
city. Kurgan won the prestigious South African FNB Vita
Prize for contemporary art in 2000 and was nominated
with her client and collaborators for Business Art South
Africa/Business Day awards in 2004 and 2005. She has
exhibited broadly, nationally and internationally and her
work is represented in most major public and corporate
South African collections and art publications.
Right
UNTITLED (I PROMISE) I LIKE YOU #II
Charcoal, pencil, pastel on rabbit-skin
glue fabriano
100 cm (wide) x 70 cm (high)
WAYNE BARKER
Born in Pretoria in 1963, Wayne Barker has over the years,
built up something of a reputation as the ‘black sheep’
of the contemporary, South African art world. His antics,
on many occasions, have outraged the art establishment
: yet it has reluctantly had to admit that he is one of the
country’s most talented artists. His work is represented in
all major museum collections and is sought internationally.
‘Barker states: “I am interested in how the media, through
popular images, inform, confuse and rape the African
continent. For the past two decades, I have also been
dealing with land, which is quite trendy now. My approach
has been to deconstruct the icons of South African
painting, particularly works by Pierneef ”.
Right
GREAT AFRICAN POSTCARD
Oil on canvas
100 cm (wide) x 100 cm (high)
WILLEM STRYDOM
Willem Strydom was born in 1954 in Johannesburg. In
1975 he obtained a National Diploma and National Higher
Diploma in Fine Art (Sculpture) at the Johannesburg
College of Art. In 1978 he pursued his Post graduate
studies at St Martin’s School of Art, London. He obtained
his MA (FA) at the University of Natal in 1984. Strydom
is an experienced artist who has received numerous awards
for his work. He was also a lecturer in Fine Art at the
Universities of Natal and Witwatersrand respectively. His
professional experience includes working with two master
carvers, Enzo and Pasquino Pasquini in Italy.
Right
LIONESS
Bronze
56 cm
GLOSSARY
Explanations for some of the terms used in
this booklet.
type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water.
Gouache differs from watercolour in that the particles
are larger, the ratio of pigment to water is much higher,
and an additional, inert, white pigment such as chalk
is also present. This makes gouache heavier and more
opaque, with greater reflective qualities.
Acrylic paint is fast-drying paint containing pigment
suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints
can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant
when dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted
(with water) or modified with acrylic gels, mediums,
or pastes, the finished acrylic painting can resemble a
watercolour or an oil painting, or have its own unique
characteristics not attainable with the other media.
(usually willow or linden/Tilia) into soft, medium, and
hard consistencies. Bamboo charcoal is the principal tool
in Japanese art. Compressed charcoal: Charcoal powder
mixed with gum binder compressed into round or square
sticks. The amount of binder determines the hardness
of the stick. Compressed charcoal is used in charcoal
pencils. Powdered charcoal: Finely powdered charcoal is
often used to ‘tone’ or cover large sections of a drawing
surface. Drawing over the toned areas will darken it
further, but the artist can also lighten (or completely
erase) within the toned area to create lighter tones.
Charcoal drawings must usually be preserved by the
application of a fixative to prevent scuffing and rubbing
of the finished artwork.
Aquatint
Crayon
Linocut
ART MEDIUMS AND TECHNIQUES
Acrylic
Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant
of etching. Intaglio printmaking makes marks on a
copper or zinc plate that is capable of holding ink. The
inked plate is passed through a printing press together
with a sheet of paper, resulting in a transfer of the ink to
the paper. This can be repeated a number of times.
Like etching, Aquatint uses the application of acid to
make the marks in the metal plate. Where the etching
technique uses a needle to make lines that print in black
(or whatever colour ink is used), aquatint uses powdered
resin which is acid-resistant in the ground to create a
tonal effect. The tonal variation is controlled by the level
of acid exposure over large areas, and thus the image is
shaped.
A crayon is a stick of colored wax, charcoal, chalk, or
other material used for writing and drawing. A crayon
made of oiled chalk is called an oil pastel; when made
of pigment with a dry binder, it is simply a pastel. Most
commercially available crayons are made of paraffin wax,
a petroleum product. Soybean oil can also be used to
make crayons, although this is not usually common.
Charcoal
Gouache
Artists generally utilize charcoal in three forms:
Vine charcoal: Created by burning sticks of wood
Etching
A process of using strong acid to cut into the unprotected
parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in
the metal. As an intaglio method of printmaking, it is,
along with engraving, the most important technique for
old master prints, and remains widely used today.
From the Italian ‘guazzo’ (water paint, splash) or
bodycolour (the term preferred by art historians) this is a
Life Drawing
Also known as figure drawing, this is an exercise in
drawing the human body in its various shapes and
positions. Life drawing refers to the process of drawing
the human figure from observation of a live model.
Figure drawing is arguably the most difficult subject an
artist commonly encounters.
A variant of woodcut in which a sheet of linoleum
(sometimes mounted on a wooden block) is used as the
relief surface. A design is cut into the linoleum surface
with a sharp knife, with the raised (uncarved) areas
representing a reversal (mirror image) of the parts that
will print. The linoleum sheet is inked with a roller, and
then impressed onto paper or fabric. The actual printing
can be done by hand or with a press.
Monotype
Not to be confused with monoprinting, monotype is a
kind of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a
smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface can vary
from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The image is then
transferred onto a sheet of paper by pressing the two
together, usually using a printing press. Monotypes can
also be created by inking an entire surface and then, using
brushes or rags, removing ink to create a subtractive
image. The inks used may be oil-based or water-based.
Unlike monoprinting, monotyping produces a unique
print, or monotype, because most of the ink is removed
during the initial pressing. Although subsequent
reprintings are sometimes possible, they differ greatly
from the first print and are generally considered inferior.
Monotypes are often spontaneously executed with no
planning sketch.
Murals
A mural is a painting on a wall, ceiling, or other large
permanent surface. Murals date to prehistoric times
such as the paintings on caves, but the term became
famous with the Mexican “muralista” art movement
(Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros and José Orozco). There
are many techniques. The best-known is probably the
traditional “fresco”, which uses water-soluble paints with
a damp lime wash. Murals today are painted in a variety
of ways, using oil or water-based media. The styles can
vary from abstract to trompe l’oeil (a French term for
“fool” or “trick the eye”). Today, the beauty of a wall
mural has become much more widely available with a
technique whereby a painting or photographic image is
transferred to poster paper which is then pasted to a wall
surface.
Oils
Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint consisting of
small pigment particles suspended in a drying oil. Many
artists consider oil paint to be one of the fundamental
art mediums; something that a student should learn to
appreciate, because of its properties and use in previous,
very popular artwork. Typical qualities of oil paint include
the long open time, where paint will not dry for up to
several weeks, allowing the artist to work on a painting
for several sessions. A propensity for the paint to blend
into surrounding paint allows very subtle blending of
colors and vivid and high chroma colors.
Silverpoint
Silverpoint predates the use of graphite as a drawing
medium and was used by old masters such as Jan
Van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Durer and
Raphael. Renaissance artists used silver and occasionally
leadpoint for underdrawings of their paintings and for
separate studies on paper. Graphite completely replaced
silverpoint as a fine drawing choice by the 19th century.
Watercolour
Also known as aquarelle, this is a painting method using
paint made of colourants suspended or dissolved in water.
The most common surface for applying watercolour is
on paper. Watercolour paints vary in their transparency
depending on the amount of water used to dilute the
pigment.
ART STYLES
Expressionism
Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort
reality for an emotional effect; it is a subjective art form.
Expressionism is exhibited in many art forms, including
painting, literature, theatre, film, architecture and music.
Additionally, the term often implies emotional angst –
the number of cheerful expressionist works is relatively
small. The term is usually linked to paintings and graphic
work in Germany at the turn of the 19th century which
challenged the academic traditions.
Hyperrealism
Hyperrealism is a genre of painting resembling a
highresolution digital photograph. Not to be confused
with photorealism, hyperrealism is a fully fledged school
of art with few similarities to the established American
school of photorealism of the 1970s. Hyperrealist
painters use photographic images as a reference source
from which to create a more definitive and detailed
rendering, one that unlike photorealism, often is narrative
and emotive in its depictions.
Modernism
Modernism is a tendency rooted in the idea that the
“traditional” forms of art, architecture, literature, music,
religious faith, social organization and daily life had
become outdated; therefore it was essential to sweep them
aside. Modernism encouraged the re-examination of
every aspect of existence, from commerce to philosophy,
with the goal of finding that which was “holding back”
progress, and replacing it with new, and therefore better,
ways of reaching the same end. In essence, the modernist
movement argued that the new realities of the industrial
and mechanized age were permanent and imminent, and
that people should adapt their world view to accept that
the new equaled the good, the true and the beautiful.
The modernist movement started gaining momentum
between 1910 and 1930.
Ellerman House
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