49 - GREGOIRE JOHANNES BOONZAIER (SOUTH AFRICAN 1909-2005)

GREGOIRE JOHANNES BOONZAIER (SOUTH AFRICAN 1909-2005) SOUTH AFRICAN FARM signed Gregoire lower right oil on panel 39.5 x 29.5cm (45.9 x 35.9cm framed) Property from a Private Collection, Cambridge Provenance Sale, Bill Hood & Sons Arts & Antiques Auctions, Delray Beach, FL, USA Purchased from the above by The DinksFãStan Private Collection, Cambridge, UK To be sold to benefit the Runwenzori Foundation Gregoire Johannes Boonzaier was born in Cape Town on 31 July 1909, the son of the political cartoonist Daniël Cornelis Boonzaier. His father opposed formal art training, so Gregoire learned from Cape Impressionist painters such as Kottler and Nita Spilhaus. He started young. His oil paintings were first exhibited in Cape Town when he was 14, and he held his first solo show two years later. Over a career of more than eighty years he went on to hold more than 100 solo exhibitions. In 1935 he went to London to study at Heatherley's School of Art and later at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. While in Europe he took in the influence of artists such as Van Gogh, Cézanne and Braque. He came home in 1937 and became a founder member and the first chairman of the New Group. For nearly fifteen years the group gave younger artists a break from South Africa's conservative art scene and brought their work to audiences across the country. He also helped found the SAAA, served as a Trustee of the SA National Gallery, and in 1948 was one of 44 South African artists shown at the Tate Gallery in London. From his base in Cape Town, Boonzaier's work often carried social commentary. This is clearest in the hundreds of paintings he made of District Six and the Bo-Kaap, which preserved a record of those communities long after they were gone. Late in his career he grew frustrated that buyers wanted only his District Six scenes. In response he put together "Variations on different themes," a non-selling exhibition of 100 works that showed how widely his subjects and styles ranged. He died on 22 April 2005, a few months before his 96th birthday, after a lifetime of mentoring generations of South African artists.