Literature

Stephan Welz (1996) Stephan Welz Art at Auction in South Africa: The Art Market Review 1969-1995, Johannesburg: Art Link, illustrated in colour on page 80.

Notes

Hermanus, or Hermanuspietersfontein as this bucolic Southern Cape settlement was known until 1902, owes its reputation as a scenic leisure destination to the persuasion of artists. In 1920, a decade before Jacob Hendrik Pierneef immortalised its old harbour in one of his Johannesburg Station Panels (1929–32), a national guidebook described how this coastal “backwater” had been transformed “after several artists painted its beauties, and from that moment there has been an ever-increasing stream of visitors.” ¹ The writer overstated matters. The new Overberg branch line, connecting Cape Town and Caledon and opened in 1902, played a greater role in reshaping the fortunes of Hermanus.

While the new line did not directly connect to Hermanus – visitors had to take a 35km road journey from Bot River Station to the coast – it played a vital role in attracting leisure and wellness visitors. The national railway authorities also offered inducements to visit, such as general seasonal excursion fares. From two hotels in 1911, the town expanded its accommodation capacity to 13 hotels by the 1930s. Hermanus was thus an obvious choice for Pierneef’s career-defining commission to paint places of natural beauty and historical significance for Johannesburg’s new railway station.

This precursor work, painted at the peak of his career, is stylistically interesting. It introduces the same vantage point that Pierneef later adopted in his monumental commission, but the extent of the view in this lot is radically truncated. The Kleinrivier Mountains, a dominant presence in most painterly and photographic depictions of the old harbour, are notably absent, as is evidence of human settlement in the middle distance – both of which feature in the later Station Panel painting. Pierneef’s colour palette is also more restrained. Rendered largely in sandy tones reminiscent of Adolph Jentsch’s Namibian works, the tonal register undercuts the town’s budding reputation as the French Riviera of the Cape. Freed from the demands of publicity, Pierneef here conjures a quieter, thriftier vision of Hermanus: a hardworking fishing village on the Indian Ocean, where fish were cleaned on six wooden benches – a minute detail that recurs in his commissioned painting.

¹ C M Rogerson and J M Rogerson (2011) 'Resort Development and Pathways in South Africa 1890-1994,' in New Directions in South African Tourism Geographies, J M Rogerson and G Visser (eds), New York: Springer, page 19.

Provenance

Stephan Welz & Co in Association with Sotheby's, Johannesburg, 13 April 1992, lot 333.