Notes

Both these bushveld landscapes date from the 1940s, a period of settled calm for Pierneef. In 1939 Pierneef took transfer of a portion of the farm Mopanie, east of Pretoria, and established a labyrinth of thatched stone cottages that included a residence, studio and gardens. He lived there until his death in 1957. Works from this period are characterised by Pierneef’s decorative style of using indigenous acacia trees to frame empty vistas of bushveld. In his 2021 book, Nog Stories Teen my Muur (lot 287), Matthys Strydom describes Pierneef as a nature lover who frequently ventured into the bushveld to draw. Striking out from Elangeni, the artist would visit South Africa’s northern territories. An accomplished draughtsman, Pierneef rendered the complex life forms he encountered with the eye of an architectural draughtsman. Pierneef’s bushveld experience and drawing practice deeply informed his oil paintings. Strydom appreciatively quotes Pierneef’s remark to art historian FEG Nilant: “No one can claim to depict a tree if they don’t understand what happens inside the bark.”¹ (Niemand kan ’n boom behoorlik uitbeeld as hy nie kennis dra van wat binne die bas aangaan nie.)

Pierneef’s bushveld landscapes, painted in his studio at Elangeni, have acquired the status of folk art. This is apparent in the provenance of both paintings. Bosveldbome (lot 250), was acquired in 1972 from Christo Botha, Strydom’s former English teacher at Hoërskool Outeniqua. Botha had inherited the work from his mother; she had acquired it in 1946 or 47 at a Pierneef exhibition in Cape Town. The negotiations to secure Bosveldbome were complicated. In 1971 Strydom offered Botha R1 800 for the work, which he rejected on account of a better offer from dealer Louis Schachat. A year later Botha returned to Strydom and asked if the offer price still stood. It did. Bosveldboomlandskap (lot 251), was acquired from Alida Lubbe, of Klein Brak River, in 1984 for R20 000. The sale of Bosveldboomlandskap enabled the Lubbe family to save their struggling service station in Mossel Bay and sell it for a profit. Both sales, writes Strydom, were accompanied by “great struggle” (groot wroeging) and tears at the loss of precious family heirlooms.² Strydom vigorously rejected as hokum the post-apartheid readings of Pierneef’s empty landscapes as nationalist propaganda. The artist, he argues, was simply not at ease depicting human subjects.

^1. Matthys Strydom (2021) Nog Stories Teen my Muur, page 9.
^2. Ibid, pages 8 and 11.

Provenance

Wolpe Gallery, Cape Town.

Mr Christo Botha, Stellenbosch, 28 April 1972.

Dr Matthys Johannes Strydom Family Collection.

Literature

Matthys Strydom (2021) Nog Stories Teen My Muur, George: LW Hiemstra Trust, illustrated in colour on page 6.