Notes

Gifted to Hoërskool Sentraal, Bloemfontein by the graduating standard 10 class in 1951, signed by each matriculant on the reverse. Late in the March of 1922, with successful shows in Stellenbosch and Cape Town behind him, Henk Pierneef took the train to Ficksburg in the Free State. Thanks to his friendship with Dr SH Pellissier, the renowned churchman, cultural leader and the then headmaster of Ficksburg High School, Pierneef was commissioned to paint eight large-scale panels for the school’s main hall. This career-first commission relied on lyrical and linear interpretations of known rock art paintings. Beloved by the school, these panels came to inspire a tradition of art endowment: every year, the matriculating class would leave a painting of its choice to the school as a parting gift. Other schools across the country – including Hoërskool Sentraal in Bloemfontein – evidently followed the same practice. The current lot, in fact, a magnificent and far-reaching view over the Karoo, its horizon dominated by imposing, lonely mountain tops, each painted with shifting tones of purple and flecks of lilac, was left to the school by the graduating class of 1951. Remarkably, each student signed on the reverse of the painting, adding to the already evocative provenance.

Provenance

Hoërskool Sentraal, Bloemfontein.