Old Arts Building from the side

A small watercolour by the South African female artist Elizabeth Maboe Rampa. In this watercolour, a pre-war painting dated circa 1940s of the Old Arts Building at the University of Pretoria is portrayed from an unusual side perspective. This shows in the foreground, the iconic Jacaranda trees of the university campus (today the Hatfield campus) and the climbing ivy on the sandstone are the main elements of the work, as opposed to just the historical building. Jacaranda’s are both the foreground and partially in the background. The purple flurry of the Jacaranda flowers is highlighted against the distinguished red roof tiles and the ivy invading the sandstone of the Old Arts Building. The Jacaranda tree throws a purple shadow and as fallen blooms beneath the tree with a winding sand path lined with stones to a courtyard. The Jacaranda trees in the artwork also indicate the season of the artwork points towards the month of October or November, when the trees are usually in full bloom. The Jacaranda tree must have died later and was replaced in 2001 by Tuks Alumni with a River Bush Willow. Ms Rizqa Carrim as a first-year student representing the class of 2001, plants the tree on 22 January 2001 as a symbol of their study and development at the university and for future alumni. There is very little literature available about this South African artist.