Notes

Pierneef was a man of vision, a man of the people … His representations of our architectural past … have earned him a well-deserved position of honour in the annals of this country.

– Wynand Smit

Pierneef was clearly drawn to Tulbagh’s rich architectural history. He spent considerable time in the town – on separate working trips in the 1920s and early 1930s – sketching quiet backstreets, sunlit gables, shaded stoeps, stuccoed gateways and low, lime-washed walls. The handsome local farmhouses, with their rustic symmetry and historic charm, caught his fancy too. These Tulbagh views inspired seven linocuts (at least), two etchings, and a group of carefully resolved oil paintings, of which the present lot is a magnificent and moody example. Executed in 1929 – the year in which he received the commission to decorate the main concourse of the new Johannesburg Railway Station – Farmhouse, Tulbagh is alive with absorbing detail: shadows exaggerate the eroded banks; a gentle wind rustles through the tall, silver-barked trees; and the dusty-maroon thatch catches the last of the fading light. The vast scale and drama of the scene is amplified by the looming mountains, painted an inky purple, and the sky, a shimmering patchwork of greys, pink and white. Henk must have been very pleased with the painting as he recreated the view, only months later, as an etching. Thanks to Chris de Klerk and Gerard de Kamper for assistance with cataloguing this lot.