Art Collection contents ELLERMAN ART COLLECTION Gregoire Boonzaier 2 Thomas William Bowler 3 Dorothy Kay 4 William Kentridge 5 Francois Krige 6 Erik Laubscher 7 Maggie Laubser 8 John Meyer 9 Pieter Hugo Naude 10 George Pemba 11 Jacob Hendrik Pierneef 12 Alexis Preller 13 Irma Stern 14 Maud Sumner 15 About The Ellerman House Art Collection Maurice van Essche 16 Jean Welz 17 Pieter Wenning 18 Ellerman House is distinguished from other fine December 2009 dates the birth of Ellerman hotels in South Africa by the Ellerman House Contemporary, our contemporary art gallery hidden ELLERMAN CONTEMPORARY Art collection. The grand collection of fine art is away under the manicured lawns of the lower terrace. Anton Kannemeyer 20 based on the sound principle of acquiring works of This space was created to expose guests to the Cameron Platter 21 unquestionable quality. The owners have spent the immense talent of South African contemporary artists Diane Victor 22 last three decades assembling a substantial collection and their work. Ever evolving, the contemporary Georgina Gratrix 23 Kate Gottgens 24 of the best South African artwork. The originals collection rotates throughout the year allowing guests Kevin Brand 25 span from the turn of the last century to current day to explore new talent in and amongst well respected Mary Sibande 26 works - from the 1910 Volschenk of an undeveloped and established South African contemporary artists. Norman Catherine 27 Camps Bay, to the contemporary new art forms of Paul du Toit 28 Vusi Khumalo. Guests are invited to take the Ellerman House Art Phillemon Hlungwane 29 Tour within the public places of Ellerman House and Strijdom van der Merwe 30 While the initial emphasis was on a collection of Ellerman Contemporary Gallery. Terry Kurgan 31 Cape paintings, as the collection grew, so did the Wayne Barker 32 scope. It now encompasses an intriguing cross section Willem Strydom 33 of genres and subject matter, which represent an overview of South Africa over the last hundred years. Glossary 34-35 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 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. 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 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. 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 hyper- realist movement in Southern Africa.