50 - JEAN WELZ (SOUTH AFRICAN 1900-1975)

JEAN WELZ (SOUTH AFRICAN 1900-1975) PREGNANT NUDE signed and dated Jeanne Welz 45 upper left oil on panel 38 x 28cm (54.8 x 47.6cm framed) Property from a Private Collection, Cambridge Provenance Acquired by the artist's son, Stefan Welz Sale, Bonhams London, South Africa sale, 2011 Purchased from the above by The DinksFãStan Private Collection, Cambridge, UK Exhibited Johannesburg, The Pieter Wenning Gallery, Jean Welz Memorial Exhibition, 1977 Johann Max Friedrich Welz was born in Salzburg, Austria, in 1900, into a family in the picture-framing and gilding trade. Called Hans in his youth, he studied art and architecture, and in 1925 traveled to Paris, and worked with prominent modern architects producing a handful of villas of his own until 1937. It was during this period that he adopted the name Jean. In 1937 Welz emigrated to South Africa with his wife the Danish journalist, Inger Christensen, and their young son, and began work as an architect at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he designed the entrance foyer of the Great Hall and the Institute for Geophysical Research. In 1939 he became ill with tuberculosis and moved with his family to Barrydale in the Little Karoo, where he and his family operated a tea-room. In 1941 Welz became principal of the Hugo Naudé Art Centre in Worcester, Western Cape, remaining in Worcester for 28 years. He held his first exhibitions in Stellenbosch and Cape Town in 1942, and the same year became a member of the New Group of South African artists, a loose association of mostly younger artists. Welz was a successful and influential artist until he again became ill in 1968. His health deteriorated and he died in 1975. One of his sons, Martin Welz, is a well-known South African investigative journalist. Another, Stephan Welz, was an art dealer.