Notes

Maggie Laubser travelled to KwaZulu Natal in 1936 and produced a body of paintings featuring Indian-South African women often characterised by the inclusion of exotic flowers and fruit. These compositions included backgrounds of paw-paw trees and their fruit, frangipani, poinsettia blossoms, and mango trees or fruit. Johan van Rooyen (1974) makes mention of this period, “Her most exotic departure was a painting trip towards the middle of 1936 to Natal where she recorded with romantic lyricism the shy, wide-eyed wonder of young Indian girls.”¹ In comparative terms, this work is rendered naturalistically as a portrait as opposed to a more stylised symbolic representation as mentioned in the above quotation.

These subjects would have resonated with her German expressionist roots and her immersion in their visual vocabulary which celebrated ‘otherness’ in terms of ‘exotic’ and ‘primitive’ subjects.

The artist’s choice to surround the sitter with hollyhocks differs from these other paintings of Indian women. Hollyhocks are an exotic flower with imbued symbolism relating to abundance and ambition owing to the fact that they proliferate so bountifully. The pink, red and purple hues within these blooms reoccurs on the lips and face, adding additional colour to her skin tone.

She is draped in a colourful sari adorned with floral motifs against the background of poppies, suggesting the mythological figure of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers and the season of Spring. Similarly, Botticelli’s master work, Primavera illustrates Flora in a dress with a profusion of floral motifs, further enhanced by a wreath and a garland of spring flowers.

Although undated, this painting bears the stylistic hallmarks of the artist’s style from the 1920s and 30s, with its keen observation, lively palette with faceted brushwork that skilfully maps the facial contours of the sitter.

¹Johan van Rooyen (1974) Maggie Laubser, South African Art Library, Cape Town and Johannesburg: Struik Publishers.

Provenance

J L van Schaik, Pretoria.

Thence by descent to the current owner.

Exhibited

Strauss & Co, Giving Direction: Figuration, Past and Present, Welgemeend Manor, Cape Town, 14 to 20 February 2022, illustrated in colour on page 24 of the exhibition catalogue.

Literature

Dalene Marais (1994) Maggie Laubser: Her Paintings, Drawings and Graphics, Johannesburg: Perskor, illustrated in black and white on page 244, catalogue number 880.