Notes

Maggie Laubser continuously created portraits throughout her career in a variety of styles and medium. In the present lot, a boldly coloured portrait of a mother and child, she has included other themes that she also favoured: the village landscape, huts, and a cat. Whereas traditional portraiture usually includes a full view of the sitter’s face, here, Laubser has hidden the faces – the mother’s behind a small hut that she is embracing and the child’s behind the tortoise-shell-like fabric of the mother’s skirt. In doing so she has allowed them to be anonymous and intriguing. She invites the viewer to create their own narrative about the pair and the symbols by which they are depicted.

Provenance

Mr and Mrs AJJ de Klerk, Pretoria, purchased from the artist circa 1969.

Private Collection.

Literature

Dalene Marais (1994) Maggie Laubser: Her Paintings, Drawings and Graphics, Johannesburg: Perskor, illustrated in black and white on page 339, catalogue number 1461.