Notes

Bertha Everard’s first days as a teacher in South Africa were at the Staats Model School in Pretoria, beginning towards the end of 1902. Had the war not forced so many local families into exile, she might have come across at the newly-reopened school a small group of young, talented artists-in-the-making, including Henk Pierneef, Fanie Eloff, Gordon Leith and Gerard Moerdijk. In any event, her stay in Pretoria was brief, having met Charles Everard at Bonnefoi, a small trading post on the Eastern Transvaal escarpment. After marrying in Pretoria in 1903, the couple returned to Bonnefoi, where the present lot was painted over a decade later. By this time their children – Ruth, Rosamund and Sebastian – had been born.

Bertha, and her sister Edith King, who had also settled at Bonnefoi, were ever-captivated by their surroundings, whether lush and overgrown in summertime, or dry and golden in winter. In Willows, a large, narrow canvas, green, teal and burnt orange paint is smeared thickly and expressively on the canvas. Writing about the painting to Edith, who was at the time teaching in Bloemfontein, Bertha’s satisfaction with the picture, not to mention her contented mood as she painted it, is appreciable: ‘I have managed nearly to finish a painting of willows down by the river. It’s rather nice – greeny blue with dull purple ground. I thought I would like to put in the three naked babes, but I haven’t done so … The rattle of laughter is still in my ears. Goodness!’<sup>1

1</sup> Frieda Harmsen (1980). The Women of Bonnefoi: The Story of the Everard Group, Pretoria: J.L van Schaik. Pages 36 and 37.

Literature

Frieda Harmsen (1980). The Women of Bonnefoi: The Story of the Everard Group, Pretoria: J.L van Schaik. Illustrated in black and white on page 37.