Free State Mountains ,1953
Note : Constituting a mature landscape, Free State Mountains contains all the elements that make Gregoire Boonzaier one of South Africa's bestloved landscape painters. When he painted this scene in 1953, the influence of Pieter Wenning early in his career was completely integrated and to a large extent eclipsed by a more assertive style and composition of the South African landscape. Studies in the United Kingdom in the early 1930s contributed significantly to Boonzaier's development as an artist. In 1938 he was arguably the most dynamic founder member of the New Group. Artists included Terence McCaw, Florence Zerffi and Freida Lock, all intent on breaking with the staid tradition in South Africa of representational European landscape painting and replacing it with a more abstract approach. Boonzaier subsequently travelled throughout South Africa, introducing the platteland to a form of modernism that was certainly unknown to most of its inhabitants and consequently creating a receptive market for his own work and that of many other South African artists. His credo was simple: Abstract art is a capitulation to the camera, yet mere verisimilitude has never been an aim of art - the artist’s personality has always imbued the object with his own artistic vision. Present preoccupation with colour, form and texture display undue concern with facets of the craft.1
1. Esmé Berman. (1983) Art & Artists of South Africa: An illustrated bibliographical dictionary and historical survey of painters, sculptors & graphic artists since 1875, Cape Town: A. A. Balkema publishers. Page 68.
