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25 April 2005My deepest condolences the family and friends of Gregorie Boonzaier. Boonzaier was born in 1909 at Newlands, Cape Town. Renowned and quietly influential as a painter of landscapes, portraits, still life, seascapes and figures, he found his artistic expression by interacting with the immediacy of life around him. He enjoyed a long life span of productivity (he started painting at age 14 until his death at the age of 96) and was able to serve as a mentor and teacher to successive generations of South African artists. Crucially, his works overlap with resistance art dating from the 1960s through to the early 1990s. As an artist, he was renowned for his elegant compositions, arresting visual structures and for outstanding technique and style. His paintings are timeless creations that captured the essence of the times. Politically, he was an early member of the South African Communist Party. He made a statement of social concern through his paintings in the 1930's when a conservative wave of thought was sweeping the world. Boonzaier also worked in oil, watercolour, ink, pencil and charcoal. As a graphic artist he produced linocuts. By the age of 20 Boonzaier had had five successful one-man exhibitions in Cape Town and between the years 1916 - 37 he spent time in Europe and South Africa. During that time he studied at the Heatherley School of Art in London. He later enrolled at the London Central School of Arts and Crafts, where he specialised in graphic art. He also visited France, Spain and the USSR and it is said that combining his overseas experience and the reading Maxim Gorky and Emile Zola influenced him to join the Communist Party on his return to South Africa in 1938. Boonzaier set up his own studio in Cape Town in 1932 and three years later financed a trip to England. In 1937 he returned to South Africa where he became the founding member of an art movement which called itself the New Group, which he chaired for 8 years. The aims of this organisation were to improve standards of artistic work and to facilitate effective marketing of artwork for its members. For 15 years it organised regular exhibitions nationally and encouraged awareness that art was not solely the domain of the privileged. Among the many artists sponsored by the group was the late Gerard Sekoto. Painter Pieter Wenning, and sculptors Moses Kottler and Anton van Wouw, were artists the young Boonzaier came into contact with. Wenning, particularly as one of the first artists to introduce impressionist paining in SA, is noted as a strong influence. Writer A.J. Werth has commented that Boonzaier's works showed the influence of the European grand masters like George Braque, Vincent van Goch, Maurice Utrillo and the cubism movement. But Boonzaier maintained a "distinctive individual style", which may be classified as "late impressionism." Art commentators have noted that "he painted what he saw… looking at everyday life, activities and the landscape itself." But it is also noted that he was not as ephemeral as the Impressionist painters. His works had a harder edge in structure of the painting and he looked at society very closely. Boonzaier had a decades-long creative engagement with District Six in Cape Town. His studies of life in District Six offered social commentary rather than meekly reproducing the landscape of South Africa. He chronicled District Six from its glory days to its demolition by the apartheid regime. This outpouring of hundreds of paintings and graphics over the years was a timely intervention because it provides a priceless documentation and artistic memorial ensuring that the substance and texture of District Six's social and cultural life remains long after its physical reality has been erased from the map of Cape Town. Boonzaier played a leading role in encouraging (white) artists to contribute to the cultural upliftment of South African people. He argued that the successful career of a serious artist is dependent on the cultural awareness of a community. He was instrumental in helping set up the South African Association of the Arts, which aimed to raise levels of understanding art nationally. As an active member of the artist's community he served on the Board of the South African National Gallery Cape Town. Gregoire Boonzaire added a distinctive voice to the rich tapestry of South African heritage. Cape Town was always his base as a painter but he continually sought to push the boundaries of his art into pioneering work, promoting art especially in rural communities. During the forties and fifties he exhibited and lectured in more than 40 towns, among them Waenhuiskrans, Struisbaai, Elim, Genadendal, Saldanha Bay and Kommetjie. Boonzaier loved people for who they were, and had an unaffected sense of humility and gentleness, which eschewed arrogance about art. In 1958 Boonzaier received the first of many accolades for his work from the South African Academy for Science and Art. In 1980 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of the Orange Free State and later received a silver medal from the University of Pretoria. He remained sprightly and active. On September 24, 2004, during the Western Cape Provincial Heritage Day celebrations, Boonzaier was honoured for his sterling work in the arts. His death signals an end of an era. He was a man of great charm, humanity, and simplicity. The book on this era still has to be written and must include how he contributed to the struggle for liberation of South Africa for which he will always be remembered. Lala ngoxolo qhawe - we salute you on your onward journey. Your dedication to your country was a gift you have bequeathed us. You will be missed. For more information please phone Andidle Xaba 082 377 6627, Mack Lewele 0824505076 or Premi Appalraju 082375 2939. Exhibitions: University of the Orange Free State Sources: Andries Loots, ARTicle, 2000 |
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