Notes

Gigantic trees dominate the foreground in Pierneef’s Shingwedzi painting. They form a veritable proscenium arch, framing a pleasant view of the rest of the landscape in the background. Shingwedzi is a popular Rest Camp in the Kruger National Game Reserve, and it is known of its indigenous trees. The present lot features many of these, such as the Knob Thorn on the right, and an Acacia tree in full bloom on the left. The shrubby, orangebrown trees between these two giants are Mopane trees. Marula trees can be distinguished in the middle ground, while to the right of them is a cluster of Bushwillows. Incidentally, these are considered the ‘Big Five’ trees in Shingwedzi.

Depicting indigenous trees has always been Pierneef’s forte as a fine artist. Commenting on his momentous exhibition at the Lidchi Gallery, Johannesburg, in 1942, for example, a Star reporter describes it thus: ‘Flat, decorative and formal in treatment, and high in key for the most part, the tree paintings represent an enthusiasm which finds full expression in Pierneef’s large-scale paintings. These are pictures one can walk into and explore’.¹ Pierneef made numerous sketches of trees while criss-crossing the country on his endless painting trips. At least one Pierneef drawing of the Kruger National Game Reserve, titled Wildtuin (1928), is known.² This date provides an indication of when he was likely to have visited the Reserve, probably for the first time. The present lot is dated 1955, when Pierneef might have visited the Reserve for the last time. It is also possible that he painted this sumptuous landscape from memory, referring to such drawings as the one mentioned above. The drawing includes many of the Knob Thorn trees endemic in the area. It also depicts a herd of Kudu buck, of the very few works in his oeuvre that features animals.

Says Grosskopf: ‘Pierneef himself believes in hard work and patient preparation. For many of the panels of the Johannesburg Station he worked out up to thirty, and even more preliminary sketches and projects. When he puts our South African trees, particularly the Bushveld trees that he loves, into one of his more decorative pictures in a somewhat formalized manner, those that know him also know that he has made hundreds of drawings from nature of all those trees with punctilious detail. He has drawn the roots gripping the earth, leaves and thorns, blossoms or curled seed pods, with the accuracy of a botanist.’<sup>3

1</sup> JFW Grosskopf 1947 Pierneef: the man and his work. Van Schaik publishers, page 13.
² PG Nel (1990). J H Pierneef: His Life and Work, Cape Town: Perskor, page 75.
³ Grosskopf (1947), page 13.