Notes

“Hierdie pragtige skildery was een van dié wat ek by Sumner uitgesoek het vir ons GEORGE 5-uitstalling (Desember 1973) en wat ek toe in Januarie 1974 self kon koop nadat die publiek twee maande lank die geleentheid versmaai het. Dis een van talle werke wat sy deur die venster van haar ateljee in Crosby Hall, Chelsea, met uitsig oor die Teems, geskilder het. As lid van die British Federation of University Women wat die gebou gehuur het, het sy gereeld daar tuis gegaan. Dis ’n goeie voorbeeld van haar besonderse vaardigheid met die waterverfkwas, die medium waarin sy, myns insiens, met groter bestendigheid werke van hoë gehalte gelewer het. ’n Gevoel van stilte en ruimte straal vir my uit dié werk. Die skoon en subtiele aanwending van kleur saam met die gevoelige gebruik van pen en ink verskaf na al die jare vir my steeds baie tone-krul genot.”

“This beautiful painting was one of those that I selected by Sumner for our GEORGE 5 exhibition (December 1973) and which I was then able to buy myself in January 1974 after the public had rejected the opportunity for two months. It is one of many works that she painted through the window of her studio in Crosby Hall, Chelsea, overlooking the Thames. As a member of the British Federation of University Women (who leased the building), she often lodged there. It is a good example of her exceptional skill with the watercolour brush, the medium in which, in my opinion, she produced works of high quality with greater consistency. A sense of silence and space radiates from this work for me. After all these years, the clean and subtle application of colour together with the use of pen and ink still gives me a lot of toe-curling pleasure.” —Dr Matthys J Strydom, 2021

Maud Sumner described herself: “as a person, I am South African and English, but as a painter I am French.”¹ In 1926, she moved to Paris after beginning her artistic career a year earlier at the Westminster School of Art in London – prior to this, she earned a degree in Literature at Oxford University. In Paris, she immersed herself in the richness of colour and taste of the French art scene.²  There she attended Ateliers d’Art Sacré and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and was influenced by Post-Impressionism and Intimism. Sumner returned to Johannesburg during the war years and exhibited with the New Group (after Walter Battiss’ 1938 invitation). She moved back to Paris after the war and her art turned towards fragmentation, as inspired by Abstractionism and the Rayonnist movement. In the 1960s, Sumner took the first of many trips to Namibia where she became interested in desert scenes. In these, she would paint the vast landscape with a softened colour palette and sense of emptiness and silence.³  In November of 1971, Sumner was awarded the Medal of Honour by the ‘Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns’. Throughout her career, Sumner travelled between South Africa, England, and France but settled in Johannesburg in 1979 due to ill health.

The collection of lots on this sale demonstrates the breadth of Sumner’s oeuvre. They range from intimate portraits, interior scenes, and still lives to vast urban, rural, and desert views. They form a wonderful cross-section of Sumner’s various interests and artistic abilities.

^1. Esmé Berman (1983) Art & Artists of South Africa, Cape Town: Balkema, page 444.
^2. Frieda Harmeson (1992) Maud Sumner: Painter and Poet, Pretoria: JL van Schaik, pages 16-20.
^3. Charles Eglington (1967) Maud Sumner, Johannesburg: Purnell and Sons SA.

Provenance

Dr Matthys Johannes Strydom Family Collection.