Footnotes

• PROVENANCE:
  Private collection, acquired directly from the artist
  Purchased by the current owner from Christopher Møller Art, Cape Town, 2008
  
  
  The lonely farmstead, set beneath magnificent mountains and lofty skies, is one of Pierneef's most compelling themes. The Cape landscape, as well as the Cape Dutch architecture common amongst farmhouses, proved stimulating to the Transvaal painter whose "paintings of Cape Dutch homes reveal his silent appreciation of the beauty of light on their white-washed walls; of the contrast between this whiteness and the dark, worn, thatched roofs; of the oak trees lavishly covered with green leaves influencing the architecture; and of the effect of the massive blue mountains and... skies in the background" (Nel 1990, p.194).
  
  One of the pair bears a striking resemblance to the linocut Die Tweelinge (The Twins) (in the collection of the Pretoria City Council and illustrated in de Villiers 1997, p.229).
  
  The inscription to "de Kock" is likely to refer to Hubertus Claudius De Kock, who worked as an editor at Die Volkstem newspaper in Pretoria (for which Pierneef did illustrations). They became firm friends and Pierneef is known to have gifted work to him.
  
  
  BIBLIOGRAPHY:
  K.L. de Villiers, The J. H. Pierneef Collection of the City Council of Pretoria Housed in the Pretoria Art Museum, (Dissertation, Pretoria, 1997)
  P.G. Nel, JH Pierneef: His life and his work, (Cape Town, 1990)

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Category: Fine Art / South African Art

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