Notes

"Then there was Louisa Williams, the old oyster woman – who could remember the days back almost a hundred years ago ... her black face and faded eyes, canopied by the stiff frilled white ‘Dutch Kappie’. I painted two portraits of her and later made an etching. 'Poor old Louisa was grateful for the job of being a model, as it saved her from having to risk her life in the sea, wading out chest high in the water, breaking off any oysters to be found on the rocks. Her husband had been washed away, she told me, years before. Old slaves from Madagascar were her people ... her manners the finest that any person of gentle birth could wish to have. I blame myself bitterly whenever I think of the day when she was standing for me, in the photographic studio, that had been kindly lent to me by the Amateur Photographic Society, and being absorbed in my work I must have kept her standing for longer than she could endure, for I heard her saying ‘Am I standing alright Ma’am?' several times before I realised she was falling ... she being black in the face, I could not tell if she was white, but I caught her as she fell and, lying her on the floor, dashed to the enclosed corner where the darkroom was, and where the only vehicle for holding water was a developing dish, which I quickly filled and held to her lips, the water spilling over the shallow edges down onto the strange emerald green frilly crochet collar that she wore round her neck, and which she had made herself. Her deep gratitude for anything that was done only served to accentuate the remorse I felt, for having been so cruel. She died several years after this, in a chronic sick home, where Hobart had sent her, having found her ill and destitute in the backyard of a broken-down house in the slums. She and some dogs were existing on any scraps of food that were thrown to them by the coloured people who lived there."¹

^1. Marjorie Reynolds (1989)"Everything you do is a portrait of yourself", Rosebank, page 41.

Provenance

Strauss & Co, Johannesburg, 9 March 2009, lot 85.

The Louis and Mavis Shill Collection.

Exhibited

Strauss & Co, Johannesburg, Dream Invisible Connections: Mary Sibande & Dorothy Kay, 11 July to 12 August 2022, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue in colour on page 21.

Literature

Marjorie Reynolds (1989)"Everything you do is a portrait of yourself", Rosebank, page 41.

Dorothy Kay (1991) The Elvery Family: A Memoir. Memoirs of the Artist Dorothy Kay, The Carrefour Press, pages 113 to 114.