Houses behind Dunes

Notes

The present lot features a mountainscape study on the reverse of the sheet.

Gladys Mgudlandlu painted multiple compositions of her suburb Guguletu and surrounding Nyanga in the 1960s and 70s. These works are characterised by tightly packed rectangular houses, surrounded by dunes and arid hills. She referred to these simple houses as pondokkies, and visited this theme frequently throughout that period. These gouache works of sub economic houses, are in stark contrast to her paintings of Cape Town and Sea Point, highlighting the area's socio-political and economic divide.

The work is further embellished by a colourful foreground of verdant trees, alongside a yellow ridge of coastal dunes. The vitality of her palette and unique paint application, married with an innate sense of design aided the artist in imbuing a relatively banal subject with a poetic presence.

Provenance

Brian Sheer, Gqeberha (formally known as Port Elizabeth), c. 1970.

Private Collection.