Old Merensky Library

A watercolour titled originally in Afrikaans, "Ou-Merensky gebou, Pretoria" by the South African artist Anne Manduell (b.1935). The work depicts the Old Merensky Library Building in 1962, that currently houses the University of Pretoria Museum's sculpture gallery. Manduell portrays her work within the ‘gardenscape’ and with the same importance, as the iconic building. The use of gardens in her watercolour invite the viewer into the spaces where people may want to enter and explore both the architectural wonder of the structures and the gardens. Her work of the Old Merensky Building depicts a landscape of trees and a lawn courtyard with people entering the building.There are two original parts of the Old Merensky garden still in existence today. The first is the Bougainvillea plants (indigenous to South America), a genus of thorny ornamental pink flowering bushes to the steps of the building. In this artwork, the plant is barely visible. These plants by the Old Merensky Building are iconic as they are hybrids created by Department of Plant Sciences specifically for the building. However, these are the only known species of its kind according to a 1937 newspaper article in The Pretoria News by the architect of the Merensky Building, Gerard Moerdyk. Another original features of the garden is the small trees to the right of the entrance, one of them was replaced with a Pride of India but the other ones were planted in the early 1940s. In spring the pink bougainvillea, the purple jacarandas, the purple agapanthuses and little yellow flowers bloom making this location an idyllic place at the University of Pretoria. This artwork by Anne Manduell is considered one of the rare watercolour or artworks of the Old Merensky Building.