Notes

Gregoire Boonzaier’s Onweersdag, Caledonstraat, painted in 1968, captures an epoch in South African history that is forever lost to us. Declared a ‘whites-only’ area in 1966, District Six was slated for demolition which commenced in 1970. The long process of forced removals broke up multicultural communities and dispersed tightly-knit families across the Cape Flats.
Fortunately, District Six lives on in the imaginative spaces of memory and in paintings such as this, where the artist, who steeped himself in its milieu, was able to bring the place and its beloved characters to life. Standing in Tennant Street, the view down one of the area’s busiest roads leading towards town includes Parker’s barbershop and the British Bioscope on the left and on the right, the corner shop run by ‘Langman’, as he was known to all, the grocery shop of Mr Maisel and Dickman’s Bakery, famous for their fresh rolls. The overcast day, prescient of things to come, lends an elegiac mood to the scene.

Provenance

Pieter Wenning Gallery, Johannesburg