oil on board

Artwork date: 1986
Signature details: signed and dated bottom right; inscribed with the title on the reverse

(1)

36.5 x 50 cm; framed size: 61.5 x 75.5 x 5.5 cm

Provenance:

Willie and Evelyn Bester Collection.

Acquired around 2000 through an exchange with another collector.

Notes:

George Pemba's work was first exhibited at the Feather Market Hall in Port Elizabeth in 1928, when he was only sixteen. In 1934, his drawings caught the attention of landscape painter, Ethel Smythe, who, in tutoring him, introduced him to the work of Rembrandt van Rijn, Diego Velázquez and the Impressionists. Pemba received first prize in the May Esther Bedford Competition in 1937, with fellow artist Gerard Sekoto awarded second prize. His first commission came in 1950, in the form of a portrait of the esteemed educator and activist, Professor Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu for the University of Fort Hare.

Pemba’s “respect for the value of good drawing, inventive composition, accomplished handling of paint and an overarching sense of vision”[1] has been praised by Hayden Proud, then Senior Curator of Historical Paintings and Sculpture at the South African National Gallery and co-author of the authoritative George Pemba Retrospective Exhibition and monograph. His ability to identify with his fellow human beings, and his immense compassion in capturing their experiences, has made him one of the foremost chroniclers of the lives of ordinary South Africans.

Another version of the subject Pennies from Heaven, painted in 1980, is illustrated in the Pemba monograph with the caption: ‘A wish-fulfillment, dreams coming true and heavenly rewards showering from the sky is the basis of a number of paintings like this, produced over a number of years. They reflect the power of hope in the face of great poverty and deprivation in the artist’s community.’[2] With its crowd of curious onlookers gathering around, it captures a more communal, everyday experience.

The present painting, from 1986, where this humble woman has turned to the open window with arms outstretched to the sky, invokes a direct relationship with the Provider, and situates the work within an august tradition of religious paintings that depict a close relationship between humans and their gods and the fulfilling of ardent wishes, dreams and prayers. In the tradition of religious depictions, she too, like Mary, Mother of God, is dressed in blue. The blue sky, bedspread and painting provide the cool tones in contrast to the room, flooded with warm light, and against which the much prayed-for golden pennies shimmer.

The notion of pennies from heaven represents unexpected good fortune, as in a sudden windfall. The expression may have originated with the song and motion picture so named in 1936, popularised by Bing Crosby.

Emma Bedford

[1] Proud, H. in Proud, Hayden and Feinberg, Barry. Eds. (1996). George Pemba Retrospective Exhibition. Cape Town: South African National Gallery and the Mayibuye Centre, p.16.

[2] Huddleston, S. (1996). George Pemba: Against All Odds. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers, p.135.

Collections:

The artist is represented in numerous local and international collections, notably, De Beers Centenary Art Gallery, University of Fort Hare.; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town.; Johannesburg Art Gallery.; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth and The World Bank Collection, Washington, D.C.