Artists

Hugo Naudé can be regarded as a quintessential South African impressionist and although he planned to specialise in portraiture after his academic training at the Slade School of Art in London in 1891, followed by the Kunstakademie in Munich. He achieved much more success with his plein air landscapes, often completed in a single sitting and retaining a characteristic sense of spontaneity.

Esmé Berman describes how his work developed from a more academic style in his portraits, where “tone was all important, brushstrokes were masked and plastic volumes smoothly modelled by means of gentle transitions from light to dark”, to a looser style with more individualised brushwork, freer composition, sun-drenched colour and a focus on “the natural abundance of the verdant countryside around him”.¹ Some of his most popular paintings are of Namaqualand in spring, when the brilliantly coloured wildflowers carpet the landscape in vivid yellows and oranges. Although he travelled extensively in Southern Africa on painting expeditions, he lived in Worcester in the Western Cape for almost all his life, and his house and garden became a community art centre after his death.

His work is included in the collections of the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town, the Pretoria Art Museum, the Johannesburg Art Gallery, the William Humphreys Gallery in Kimberley, the Albany Museum in Grahamstown, and the Durban Art Gallery among others.