Art Collection

About The Ellerman House Art Collection

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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.

ELLERMAN ART COLLECTIONGregoire Boonzaier 2Thomas William Bowler 3Dorothy Kay 4William Kentridge 5Francois Krige 6Erik Laubscher 7Maggie Laubser 8John Meyer 9Pieter Hugo Naude 10George Pemba 11Jacob Hendrik Pierneef 12Alexis Preller 13Irma Stern 14Maud Sumner 15Maurice van Essche 16Jean Welz 17Pieter Wenning 18

ELLERMAN CONTEMPORARYAnton Kannemeyer 20Cameron Platter 21Diane Victor 22Georgina Gratrix 23Kate Gottgens 24Kevin Brand 25Mary Sibande 26Norman Catherine 27Paul du Toit 28Phillemon Hlungwane 29Strijdom van der Merwe 30Terry Kurgan 31Wayne Barker 32Willem Strydom 33

Glossary 34-35

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.

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 exten-sively 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 mon-ograph, “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.

RightWASHER WOMAN, BOKAAP

Oil on canvas430 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.

RightWRECK OF BARQUE ROYAL ALBERT

IN TABLE BAYOil on board

600 mm (wide) x 500 mm (high)

THOMAS WILLIAM BOWLER

RightTABLE BAY

Oil on board400 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 colours800 mm (wide) x 1200 mm (high)

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE

Top RightGROWING OLD

Etching320 mm (wide) x 290 mm (high)

Bottom RightPREPARING FOR THE DAY

Etching320 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.

RightPEACHES IN A BOWL


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.

RightAUTUMN WHEATLANDS,

MALMESBURYOil on canvas

1190 mm (wide) x 810 mm (high)

ERIK LAUBSCHER

RightVIEWS FROM MATZIKAMA MOUNTAINS


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 SASA-related 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.

RightSEAGULL


MAGGIE LAUBSER

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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 hyper-realist 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.

RightHEX RIVER


JOHN MEYER

RightBLACK SOUTH EASTER III


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

RightSPRINGTIME IN NAMAQUALAND


Following on next slide

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.

RightSPRINGTIME IN NAMAQUALAND


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.

RightTOWNSHIP DANCE


GEORGE PEMBA

RightEND OF THE ROAD


JACOB HENDRIK PIERNEEF

RightA WINTER BUSHVELD LANDSCAPE


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.

JACOB HENDRIK PIERNEEF

Far RightSUMMER BUSHVELD


RightMONT-AUX-SOURCES


ALEXIS PRELLER

RightA STILL LIFE WITH LAMPS


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”.

IRMA STERN

RightTHE COTTON PICKERS


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 ofsubject matter for her paintings.

IRMA STERN

RightTHE COTTON PICKERS


MAUD SUMNER

RightUNTITLED


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

MAUD SUMNER

RightGAANSBAAIOil on board

530 mm (wide) x 440mm (high)

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.

MAURICE VAN ESSCHE

RightPORTRAIT OF LADY IN MOURNING


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.

MAURICE VAN ESSCHE

RightTHE HARLEQUIN


JEAN WELZ

RightSTILL LIFE WITH MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS


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 whichhis vocation always forces him, the challenge can be met only by a courageous spirit.

JEAN WELZ

Right NUDE

Oil on canvas680 mm (wide) x 900 mm high

PIETER WENNING

RightFARM WITH LARGE TREES


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.

PIETER WENNING

Right THE SHEPHERD


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

RightI LOVE THE WHITE MIDDLE CLASS…

Acrylic on Canvas120 cm (wide) x 120 cm (high)

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 Witwa-tersrand Technicon and then as a senior lecturer at Stel-lenbosch. 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 Kanne-meyer has also curated several comic exhibitions in South Africa and Europe.

CAMERON PLATTER

RightSECRET PLANS AND CLEVER TRICKS

Pencil Crayon on Paper110 cm (wide) x 110 cm (high)

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.

DIANE VICTOR

RightUNTITLED (PIG)Smoke on Paper

42cm (wide) x 58cm (wide)

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.

GEORGINA GRATRIX

RightLIRA

Oil on Fabriano130 cm diameter

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.

KATE GOTTGENS

RightBONE BY BONE

Oil on canvas84 cm (wide) x 60 cm (high)

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.

KEVIN BRAND

RightWOMAN IN POLKA DOT DRESS

Metal, wood, enamel paint150 cm (wide) x 150 cm (high)

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.”

MARY SIBANDE

RightI’M A LADY

Digital print on cotton rag matte paper60 cm (wide) x 90 cm (high)

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.

MARY SIBANDE

RightTHEY DON’T MAKE THEM

LIKE THEY USE TODigital print on cotton rag matte paper

60 cm (wide) x 90 cm (high)

NORMAN CATHERINE

RightFISHMAN


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 rough-edged comical and nightmarish forms, rendered in brash cartoon colours.

PAUL DU TOIT

RightHOMINID LABORATORY

Acrylic on canvas210 cm (wide) x 130 mm (high)

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.

PHILLEMON HLUNGWANE

RightMINGA VONANI KUXOUGA KA XIGAZA

Print115 cm (wide) x 85 cm (high)

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 Co-ordinator 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.

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.

RightSTEEL GATE

TERRY KURGAN

RightUNTITLED (I PROMISE) I LIKE YOU #II

Charcoal, pencil, pastel on rabbit-skin glue fabriano

100 cm (wide) x 70 cm (high)

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.

WAYNE BARKER

RightGREAT AFRICAN POSTCARD


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 ”.

WILLEM STRYDOM

RightLIONESS

Bronze56 cm

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.

GLOSSARY

Explanations for some of the terms used inthis booklet.

ART MEDIUMS AND TECHNIQUES

AcrylicAcrylic 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.

AquatintAquatint 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.

CharcoalArtists generally utilize charcoal in three forms:Vine charcoal: Created by burning sticks of wood

(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.

CrayonA 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.

EtchingA 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.

GouacheFrom the Italian ‘guazzo’ (water paint, splash) or bodycolour (the term preferred by art historians) this is a

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.

Life DrawingAlso 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.

LinocutA 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.

MonotypeNot 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 removedduring 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.

MuralsA 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.

OilsOil 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.

SilverpointSilverpoint 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.

WatercolourAlso known as aquarelle, this is a painting method usingpaint 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

ExpressionismExpressionism 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.

HyperrealismHyperrealism 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.

ModernismModernism 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.

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