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Pieter Wenning (1873-1921)
Pieter Willem Frederick Wenning (South African 1873-1921) COTTAGE AMONGST TREES signed with the artist's initials and dated '12 oil on canvas PROVENANCE Inherited directly from the artist. 32 by 24,5cm When Pieter Wenning moved from Amsterdam to Pretoria with his family in 1905, to work at De Bussys Bookshop, he was well acquainted with the Dutch impressionists and Oriental art, read widely, and drew and painted in his leisure time. He joined The Individualists art club (along with J.H. Pierneef) in Pretoria and exhibited with them in 1911. By the time he moved in to De Bussys Johannesburg branch in 1913, he had purchased a printing press, and produced a portfolio of etchings, Johannesburg Impressions. He visited Cape Town briefly in 1913 and met the political cartoonist and diarist, D.C. Boonzaier, who became Wennings staunchest supporter and critic. The friendship was renewed when Boonzaier spent 1914 working in Johannesburg. He later organised funds for Wenning to spend three months painting in Cape Town in 1916, and encouraged him to become a full-time artist, moving from Pretoria to Cape Town. Wenning spent much of his short working life here, with visits to Pretoria, Lourenço Marques, Durban, and Port Elizabeth. Boonzaiers diaries and Wennings letters to him give acute insight into an artist plagued with ill-health and obsessed with working under any conditions, utterly absorbed in his subjects, not caring about selling, often destroying and overpainting his work. Wennings rough brushwork, patches of colour (often revealing the support underneath), sketchy lines, and individual approach to his subject matter (landscapes, street scenes, still lifes, portraits) won him wide appeal and many followers in the style that came to be known as Cape Impressionism. He excelled at the quiescent landscape, nature at rest. His method was to complete a work en plein air and with his subject before him. Yet the myth of Wenning's spontaneity is effectively exploded by the existence of a large number of studies, sketches and unfinished drawings. The freshness and delicate atmospheric qualities of his best works were achieved by hard work. I.L. Edited from: http://www.oxfordartonline.com/public/page/Benezit_free_Wenning [Accessed: 23 September 2015] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Wenning [Accessed: 24 September 2015]
Jacob Hendrik Pierneef (South African 1886-1957) NEAR GREYTOWN NO. 16 signed, inscribed with the titled on the reverse in pencil oil on canvas 38,5 by 53,5cm
Jacob Hendrik Pierneef, the prolific South African landscape artist, is recognised as one of the first artists of his time to depict the African landscape in a style adapted to his surroundings. This was in contrast to the practices of his contemporaries- such as Pieter Wenning and Frans Oerder, who, in the early 20th century, perpetuated the style of their European training, as is evidenced in lots 734 and 743 respectively. As a result, Pierneef has received wide acclaim as an iconic Africanist painter.
Greytown is a small town situated on the banks of a tributary of the Umvoti River in a richly fertile timber producing area of the Kwa Zulu-Natal Midlands near the lower reaches of the majestic Drakensberg mountain range. In winter, indigenous aloes flower profusely, the red, spikey blooms emanating from sharp, green leaves creating spectacular candelabra effect. This is so delicately captured in lot 741, Near Greytown No 16. In this oil on canvas work, Pierneef has illustrated the flat-topped lime-stone hills of the region, revealing his observations of the local topography and his obsession with architecture in the way that he builds them into the landscape. A suggestion of passing clouds recedes in the background. A pale shadowed middle ground offsets the towering, parallel lines of aloes and lush greenery suggesting a river bank in the foreground. Pierneef’s love for the veld as well as his deep interest in plants, trees and succulents is strongly exhibited in this work in which he has depicted this subject matter with both the emotion of an artist and the accuracy of a botanist.
The number in the title inscribed on the reverse of the work likely refers to the practise of executing a series of studies of the same scene perceived through changing light conditions and views. This fine work was acquired at one of Pierneef’s original exhibitions in Durban and has remained in the same family until now, thus presenting an exciting opportunity for the collector to acquire a fresh work by the artist on the open market.
- Grosskopf, J. F. W., Hendrik Pierneef: The Man and His Work, J. L. van Schaik, Ltd., Pretoria, 1947
- Nel, P. G., JH Pierneef: His Life and His Work, Perskor, Cape Town, 1990
BOONZAIER, G.* & LIPSHITZ, I.L. + Wenning. Publ. Unie-Volkspers,1949 *** laminated cloth, dw. Signed Boonzaier. (Some water damage to cover, endpapers discoloured). SCHOLTZ, J. du P. + D.C. Boonzaier en Pieter Wenning : Verslag van 'n Vriendskap. Publ. Tafelberg, 1973 **** laminated cloth, dw. WENNING, H. My Father. Publ. Timmins, 1976 *** plain, dw. (Slight foxing dw.)
STOWE: QUEEN'S TEMPLE, GOTHIC FOLLY, COBHAM PILLAR AND PALLADIAN BRIDGE
58 by 79cm., 22 3/4 by 31in.
signed
watercolour, gouache, wax crayon and coloured chalks
PROVENANCE
Marlborough Fine Art, London, 1974
Pieter Wenning Gallery, Johannesburg
Gainsborough Gallery, whence purchased by the present owner, 1970s
NOTE
A public school since 1926, Piper first visited Stowe in 1937 at the invitation of the then headmaster J.F. Roxburgh, a great admirer of Piper's recently published Brighton Aquatints. With permission to come and go as he pleased during and after the war, Piper made frequent visits there, intending to produce an aquatint sequel based on the house and the follies and grottoes dotted around the park. Though the sequel never materialised, Stowe became one of Piper's favourite places. He later wrote 'I hope my happy days at Stowe will continue. There is no end to the things one can paint there and dream about. 'Architecturally', Mark Girouard has written, 'it is an epitome, almost a museum of Georgian styles, where else can one savour Vanbrugh, Kent and Gibbs, and move to and fro from Baroque to Palladian, and Gothic to Neo-Classical, so effortlessly and enjoyably within a few square miles? (Richard Ingrams and John Piper, Piper's Places: John Piper in England and Wales, Chatto & Windus, London, 1983, p.62).