Notes

Throughout Clarke’s oeuvre, the landscape has emerged as an ever-present motif. Whether developed as a metaphor for the socio-political terrain of Apartheid South Africa or a reflection of the artist’s immediate life, Clarke’s landscapes have always reflected deeply humanistic conditions and optimism with undertones of disquiet, amid challenging social circumstances.

Clarke was born and grew up in Simons Town, which served as a classroom for his formative years of creative output. Despite the town’s vibrant and tumultuous political history, Clarke remained inspired by the coastal landscapes he grew up in and traversed through. Clarke recorded romantic views of the Cape coast and was drawn to the spatial layout of Simons Town, with its ‘perspectival spaces and elevated views provided by the architectural intricacies of the buildings, streets, and steps clustered together on the steep hillside were stern subjects for an artist in training’.¹

Despite Clarke’s success, he remained aware of the social circumstances that governed his life. Apartheid legislation intensified upon his return to South Africa following his stay in Europe, where he trained at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten.² In 1973, the Clarke family were forcibly evicted from their home and relocated to a barren and uninviting Slangkop (now known as Ocean View),³ where Clarke would live for the remainder of his life.⁴ Clarke made very few artworks in the formative years of his stay in Slangkop, as the trauma of the Group Areas Act was ‘too distressing for aesthetic contemplation’.5 However, Early Evening on Slangkop, CP (lot 157) seems to be a slight contrast to that experience. Here we encounter an idyllic view of Slangkop, devoid of human presence and intriguing to the imagination with a sense of the day gradually concluding. Perhaps the only nod to Clarke’s despondency at the time is his choice of medium. The fragmented and patchy nature of the work is perhaps a sign of the psychological discontent that apartheid led to – a kind of landscape with psychological implication – a statement about the artist’s sense of self in relation to land. The use of throw-away materials became part of Clarke’s studio practice – linoleum floors, discarded furniture and, in this case, remnants of previously painted surfaces and fabric – provide a sense of optimism and perseverance despite challenging times.⁶

The same is echoed in Birds Fighting (lot 156). In comparison to Early Evening on Slangkop, CP (lot 157), and Birds Fighting presents a close-up
view of a landscape. A wooden bench is placed against a wall where we find two wrestling birds placed in a cobalt blue sky, with hints of umber and ochres. The robustly worked surface is emphasised through the strong use of line, adding rigid and robust character. Dated ‘18. Oct. 1975’ lot 156 was likely created as a response to the continued mass relocation of non-white citizens and further state repression. For Clarke ‘This wall was like the Group Areas Act – a barrier, a white wall. It stops people seeing what is going on’.⁷ Lot 157 is a prompt to think about the wall as a psychological barrier rather than a physical one, a ‘reflection on questions of proximity and distance, on inclusion and exclusion, on belonging and not’.⁸

^1. Philippa Hobbs and Elizabeth Rankin (2011) Listening to the Distant Thunder: The Art of Peter Clarke, Johannesburg: Standard Bank, page 38.
^2. Ibid, page 86.
^3. Ibid, page 129.
^4. https://artthrob.co.za/News/Peter_Clarke_Artist_Writer_Poet_Dies_at_84_by_M_Blackman_on_18_April.aspx, accessed 29 July 2023.
^5. Hobbs and Rankin, page 129.
^6. Ibid, page 147
^7. Ibid, page 143.
^8. https://asai.co.za/some-thoughts-peter-clarke-1/, accessed 31 July2023.

Provenance

SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch.

Private Collection.

Exhibited

Chelsea Gallery, Cape Town, Peter Clarke Exhibition, 5 October to 21 October 1987.

Literature

Philippa Hobbs and Elizabeth Rankin (2011) Listening to the Distant Thunder: The Art of Peter Clarke, Johannesburg: Standard Bank, page 130.