Notes

This striking pair of paintings featuring birds in the landscape, represents Maggie Laubser at her best.   The strength of these works demonstrates her ability to absorb the tenets of Modernism, learnt through her association with the German Expressionists, and to apply them to creating a unique South African vision.   Her abiding affinity with nature and her deep love of the South African soil and its rich birdlife are clearly evident in both paintings.....

The lone Blue Crane (Anthropoides paradise) or Bloukraanvoël with its large head, long slender neck and trailing wing feathers surveys the landscape which is at once typically South African and a figment of the artist's prodigious imagination.   

Clearly defined mountains, trees and clouds painted in large expanses of bright but harmonious colour convey Laubser's palpable delight derived both from the experience of painting and from her spiritual engagement with the world around her.