17th Jul, 2017 17:00
Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art
112
Gregoire Boonzaier (South Africa 1909-2005)
Street scene, Cornwall
oil on canvas
Artwork date: 1936
Signature details: signed and dated
Condition Report
Previously restored and wax lined, paint dry and dull, cracking throughout, surface dirt, mior paint loss mid top portion, would benefit from restoration.
Please note, we are not qualified conservators and these reports give our opinion as to the general condition of the works. We advise that bidders view the lots in person to satisfy themselves with the condition of prospective purchases.
oil on canvas
Artwork date: 1936
Signature details: signed and dated
(1)
45 x 69.5 cm
Stephan Welz & Co, Johannesburg, 26 May 2008, lot number 262.
Notes:
This early work by Gregoire Boonzaaier dates to his study-time in England. The artist’s father - D.C. [Daniel Cornelius] - the famous cartoonist, was strongly against his son having any formal art training, so Gregoire spent his years on leaving school, in his father’s studio painting informally with local artists. In 1932, at the age of 23 and very much against his father’s wishes, he set up his own studio. Two very successful exhibitions in Cape Town and Pretoria, enabled him to fund a study trip to England in 1935. In London, he studied at Heatherley’s School of Art under Bernard Adams, along with Terence McCaw and Freida Lock. According to Berman (1974:44), he also studied in St. Ives in Cornwall. It would be during this time that he painted this work.St. Ives, with its very particular quality of light, its south-facing loft spaces and its picturesque fishing-village quaintness became a popular destination for artists from the 1880s onwards. Although the St. Ives School of painting was only established in 1938, after Boonzaaier left England, the St. Ives Society of Artists would have been active during Boonzaaier’s time in the village.This is a typical seaside village scene which follows the conventions of contemporary Cornish photographs and postcard illustrations. A figure in a doorway draws the viewer’s eye into pictorial depth while a mother and child inhabit the central street space. The higgledy-piggledy houses and cottages, all of differing heights, materials and angles as well as the varying street levels are typical of small English fishing villages with their harbour walls. Two seagulls on the tree in the background and three flying in the sky, further emphasize the seaside location. While Boonzaaier is clearly experimenting with the structural devices of the angles and planes of gables, walls and bricked embankment in the foreground, he is also exploring a painterly effect, with loose brushwork, scumbling technique, and contrasting areas of quite thick impasto and canvas left bare.
Liz Delmont
Sources:
Berman, E. (1974). Art and Artists of South Africa. Cape Town: Balkema.
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Auction: Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art, 17th Jul, 2017
Aspire Art Auctions’ second Johannesburg sale offered a selection of some of the best works produced by local and international artists available on the local market. Offerings included Cameroonian-born, Belgium-based, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Chilean, Eugenio Dittborn, and South Africans, William Kentridge, Kendell Geers, Louis Maqhubela, Cecil Skotnes, Maggie Laubser, Irma Stern, and Mohau Modisakeng, amongst others.
The sale was led by an international auction record of R1 200 320 achieved for a drawing, Children under Apartheid, by exiled South African artist Dumile Feni, as well as the successful sale of top international lot Golden Mask by renowned performance artist Marina Abramović.
Viewing
Friday 14 July 2017 | 10 am – 7 pm
Saturday 15 July 2017 | 10 am – 5 pm
Sunday 16 July 2017 | 10 am – 4 pm
HIGHLIGHTS
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