Jess Cottage, Pretoria (Nilant 30)

Literature

F E G Nilant (1974) Die Hout- en Linosneë van JH Pierneef, Cape Town: A A Balkema, another impression from the edition illustrated in black and white on page 60.

Gerard de Kamper and Chris de Klerk (2014) JH Pierneef in Print, Bela-Bela: Dream Africa, another impression from the edition illustrated in black and white on page 24.

Notes

In 1948, just short of Pretoria's centenary, Pierneef was commissioned by the City Council to paint fifteen scenes capturing the so-called Old Pretoria. The artist was well-placed to do this as he had started sketching the settler houses and surrounding landscapes before Union. Using his own historical source material then, which included a number of related linocuts and etchings, he was able to paint a unique visual record of a bygone period. The fact that he was a builder's son, a fine architectural draughtsman, and deeply interested in vernacular buildings, gave the body of work even greater weight and archival value.