Notes

‘I love my country, its people – especially its children, and its natural beauty. In my work I endeavour to portray things in a way which people are able to understand. I enjoy capturing scenes and images I see and experience around me, as I perceive it – as it  impressed itself on me.’ Adriaan Boshoff

Boshoff’s It Was a Good Day is one of the last works he painted before his death in 2007, and to date it is the largest work to come up on auction. The vast, golden, outstretched beach is populated by men, women and children fisher folk, hauling in and carrying in their woven baskets an abundant catch from the magnificent deep aquamarine and turquoise ocean. Typical of Boshoff, the clothes of his figures are painted in a spectacular array of jewel-like colours, reds, yellows, blues and purple, adding to the richness and vivacity of this work.

Few artists have captured the imagination of a nation as much as Boshoff with his landscapes, often with cattle grazing, seascapes, still lifes and figures. His oil paintings have become known for portraying everyday scenes in his very own unmistakable impressionistic style as he represented the mood, soul, atmosphere, colour and light of the South African sun-baked landscape.