Artist Database

Erik Laubscher was born in 1927 in Tulbagh, and grew up in Port Elizabeth. He showed an early interest in art and began his formal art studies under Maurice van Essche at the Continental School of Art in 1946. Encouraged to continue his studies abroad, he left for London to study firstly under the portrait artist Frank Slater and then in a more convivial environment at the Anglo-French Art Centre. In 1950 Laubscher decided to further his studies in Paris and enrolled at the Académie Montmartre, where he was a pupil of Fernand Léger who exerted a strong influence on his work. Laubscher also met his wife, Claude Bouscharain, at the Académie. On Laubscher’s return to Cape Town in 1951 he wasted no time, putting on a solo show at The Argus Gallery. Erik and Claude’s home at 6 Cheviot Place, Sea Point, became a social hub for Cape Town artists and writers. In 1971 Laubscher founded the Ruth Prowse School of Art and ran it for 25 years, all the while practicing as an artist himself.