Notes

“I have worked extensively in various graphic mediums, lithography, etching, wood engraving and wood cuts. Wood engraving is a very beautiful technique and I hope that some of my students I taught at the Michaelis School of Art will keep this artistic skill alive in South Africa. As far as I know I was the first wood engraving artist in this country’. —Eleanor-Esmond-White^1.

Dr Strydom was a strong supporter of Eleanor Esmonde-White and presented her works regularly at his annual summer exhibition in his gallery in George. Amongst his extensive collection are no less than eight artworks by the artist: four oils, three charcoal drawings and a wood engraving.

Eleanor Frances Esmonde-White began her studies at the University of Natal in 1932. In 1933 she won the Herbert Baker Scholarship which enabled her to study mural painting at the Royal College of Art in London. Whilst there she and Le Roux Smith Le Roux were commissioned to decorate a wall of South Africa House, the new South African Embassy in Trafalgar Square. Exhibition murals, tapestry and mosaic designed for public buildings, occupied much of Esmonde-White’s early career. She continued to travel between London and South Africa during the years 1938-1954. In 1938 she joined the New Group and was a part of the Group until 1954. In 1949 Esmonde-White established the design department at the Michaelis School of Fine Art where she taught for 12 years, retiring in 1960 and thereafter moving to Corfu, Greece. Her work largely centres on women engaged in daily tasks – her compositions have warmth navigating the borders of sentimentality that have a wide-ranging appeal, her most popular subjects being bathers and mothers with children.

^1. Leanne Raymond (2015) Eleanor Esmonde-White, Paarl: Main Street Publishing, page 162.

Provenance

Dr Matthys Johannes Strydom Family Collection.

Literature

Leanne Raymond (2015) Eleanor Esmonde-White, Paarl: Main Street Publishing, another impression from the edition illustrated on page 167.