Country Club Johannesburg, Woodmead 1 November 2010 – 8 pm South African Paintings and Sculpture Session Two: Lots 150–230 OPPOSITE Lot 194 Alexis Preller, Angel Head (detail) 69 PROPERTY OF THE ESTATE LATE ESTHER HOLLOWAY 150 Frans David Oerder SOUTH AFRICAN 1867–1944 Winter Scene, Cape Flats signed oil on board 12,5 by 22 cm R30 000 – 40 000 70 PROPERTY OF THE ESTATE LATE ESTHER HOLLOWAY 151 Frans David Oerder SOUTH AFRICAN 1867–1944 Apies River, North of Pretoria signed oil on canvas 42 by 62,5 cm R120 000 – 180 000 71 PROPERTY OF THE ESTATE LATE ESTHER HOLLOWAY 152 Pieter Hugo Naudé SOUTH AFRICAN 1868–1941 Bain’s Kloof signed and dated 21 oil on board 24,2 by 29,3 cm R80 000 – 120 000 72 153 Frans David Oerder SOUTH AFRICAN 1867–1944 Executed circa 1898. Frederik Jacobus Bezuidenhout’s Farm, On 20 September 1861, Frederik Jacobus Bezuidenhout Bezuidenhout Valley purchased this farm from the widow of the original owner, signed B.P. Viljoen, and gave his name to the area. Now a large oil on canvas residential suburb of Johannesburg it lies between the long 48,5 by 95 cm hill known as Observatory on the north and the Kensington ridge on the south. The homestead with its row of walnut R250 000 – 400 000 trees was at the foot of the valley near Gillooley’s Farm. 73 In February 1919 Pieter Wenning instructed the as it flows north through the city. Above this Johannesburg auctioneer Ernest Lezard to auction landscape, a bright blue sky optimistically takes over thirty of his paintings and drawings. It was up almost two thirds of the composition. In the then customary for artists to auction a large distance are the Union Buildings on Meintjies body of their recent work. Wenning was at the Kop, the site selected by architect Sir Herbert time under financial pressure particularly since Baker because it was ‘nearer to the town, which his wife required serious surgery. She underwent it dominated as did the Acropolis the city of the operation only to die a few days later on 23 Athens ...’1 Significantly, the Union Buildings were February. designed to commemorate the merging of the The sale was not a great success with almost two former Boer colonies and the two british a quarter of the works remaining unsold yet two colonies. In addition to housing the government in works, The Apies River and Union Buildings and its administrative capital, the Union Buildings were Landscape Pretoria (this and the following lot), each intended to provide a visible symbol of the fusing A photograph of Mr Tomlinson’s sitting room, showing sold for £15 (R30) reputedly then the highest price of the two disparate histories and cultures into one the two Pieter Wennings flanking a Hugo Naudé still life ever paid for a painting by Wenning. The paintings united country. which appeared in Die Huisgenoot, 25 June 1954. were purchased by Gordon Campbell Tomlinson. The cornerstone was laid in late 1910 and the Tomlinson was born on the 6 October 1887 one building completed in 1913 just a few years before of 13 children. Both attorney and author he took Wenning painted this scene. The Union Buildings a leading role in the second Afrikaans language feature in other works such as the pencil and movement. Together with Prof. J.J. Smith and wash drawing entitled Die Uniegebou, Pretoria Dr. Tobie Muller they published the periodical which was amongst the works that the artist Ons Moedertaal which later merged with Die consigned to D. C. Boonzaier in March 1916 for sale. Huisgenoot. At the time that he purchased these In correspondence between them dating from paintings he practised as an attorney at Vredefort 27 March to 11 May 1916 they discussed the works where he spent the greater part of his life. and Boonzaier noted in a diary entry of 14 May Shortly after acquiring the paintings, Tomlinson 1916: ‘This is one of the most charming things arranged a small local exhibition of his collection Wenning has done.’2 and presented a lecture. He wrote to Shortly While Wenning was working daily in De Bussy’s after acquiring the paintings, Tomlinson arranged Bookshop he used every available free Wednesday a small local exhibition of his collection and afternoon and Sundays to go out painting. It often presented a lecture. He wrote to Wenning, J.E.A. took him about an hour to cycle out to his chosen Volschenk and Hugo Naudé asking for their sites where he would work furiously, sometimes approach to and philosophy of art and also their till after sunset, before packing up and cycling 154 aims. All three replied at some length. Their replies back into town. At one stage he acquired a tent, Pieter Willem Frederick Wenning are reproduced in an article on the Tomlinson the better to be able to immerse himself in the SOUTH AFRICAN 1873–1921 collection published in Die Huisgenoot of 25 June landscape and study its features. 1954 by Prof. G. Dekker. Sadly a part of the Wenning His landscapes show evidence of careful The Apies River and Union Buildings reply had been mislaid. Wennings reply is also observation from nature, yet the painterly quality oil on board reproduced in the catalogue for the retrospective remains paramount. With broad brushstrokes 40 by 50 cm exhibition presented by the Pretoria Art Museum in loaded with a range of blues and greens, he March 1967. Both paintings are now being sold by captures the vista over Pretoria with a vision that is R1 000 000 – 1 200 000 Tomlinson descendants. fresh and assured. In this remarkable painting of Pretoria in the 1 Peter Unsworth, ‘Herbert Baker’s gift to the nation’, The Sunday PROVENANCE early twentieth century, Pieter Wenning captures Times, 30 May 2010, pages 10–11. Gordon Campbell Tomlinson and thence by an image of a fertile place, populated with trees 2 J. Du P. Scholtz, D. C. Boonzaier en Pieter Wenning: Verslag van ‘n descent and lush undergrowth alongside the Apies River Vriendskap, Tafelberg Publishers, 1973, page 24. 74 75 155 Pieter Willem Frederick Wenning SOUTH AFRICAN 1873–1921 Landscape, Pretoria oil on board See the notes to Lot 154 35,5 by 42,2 cm PROVENANCE R600 000 – 900 000 Gordon Campbell Tomlinson and thence by descent 76 156 Jacob Hendrik Pierneef SOUTH AFRICAN 1886–1957 A Mountainous Landscape signed oil on card 22,5 by 30,2 cm R80 000 – 120 000 77 This remarkable painting by Jacob Hendrik Pierneef he traced the contours of this remarkable area. has an illustrious provenance. It was acquired Kaapschehoop, a tiny hamlet in the Barberton from the artist by Johannes Lambertus van Schaik district, was one of the first places in which (1888–1965) on 25 November 1949 and inherited alluvial gold deposits were discovered in the by his son Jan Jacob van Schaik (1917–2009). 1880s. Prospectors, seeing in the 10 000 square The former came to South Africa from Holland kilometre valley a resemblance to the Cape of in 1911 and joined the bookseller De Bussy in Good Hope with Table Mountain towering above Johannesburg. In 1914 he founded the bookselling it, named it De Kaap valley and their incorrigible and publishing house J L van Schaik in Pretoria. optimism gave rise to the official name of the The business flourished and on his death his two hamlet. Pierneef’s painting thus becomes a cultural sons Jan and Hans continued to run the company meditation on the origins of the gold industry that until 1986 when it was sold to Nasionale Pers. It still gave first Barberton and then the Witwatersrand continues to trade under the name Van Schaiks. their raison d’être. Acquired from the artist’s studio shortly after it Pierneef succeeds in achieving both a breadth PROPERTY OF THE ESTATE LATE J. J. VAN SCHAIK was painted, the provenance is evidence of the of vision and a depth of perspective by structuring 157 close and supportive relationship between the his composition in astute ways. The rolling hills and artist and the bibliophile. As a patron of the arts, the sloping mountains that are arranged in a series Jacob Hendrik Pierneef Van Schaik is known to have collected impressive of interlocking diagonals, encourage our eye to SOUTH AFRICAN 1886–1957 works that include Irma Stern’s Gladioli, on Strauss travel to the edges of the painting and back to its & Co’s 11 October sale in Cape Town. The fact that centre, emphasising the width of the landscape. Barberton en Nelshoogte, Kaapschehoop he selected this particular painting is evidence of Linear perspective that leads one’s eye, via the signed and dated 49; inscribed with the title and its importance in Pierneef’s oeuvre. zigzagging river to the vanishing point and aerial ‘van Pierneef Studio ‘25.11.49’ on the frame on the Viewed from the Nelshoogte plateau along the perspective with warm colours that advance in the reverse southern part of the Mpumalanga escarpment foreground and with cool, receding colours in the oil on canvas area west of the town of Barberton, the painting background, provide the impression of deep space. 65,5 by 85,5 cm offers a spectacular view of the valley with the river The result is a painting that is breathtaking in its coursing into the distance. The foreground has an scale and ability to evoke the vastness of the South R3 000 000 – 4 000 000 astonishing wealth of detail in the vegetation and African landscape. While the artist’s compositional thorn trees so emblematic of Pierneef’s landscape strategies lend complexity to the painting, the PROVENANCE paintings.