Paul Kruger

A bronze bust of Paul Kruger (1890) by the South African artist Anton van Wouw (1862-1945). In 1890, Van Wouw had just arrived as a young stucco worker in Pretoria South Africa. The bust of the then President Kruger is the first work he created in South Africa in 1890. He displayed the work in the government building on Church Square in Pretoria in the hope of gaining more commissions. In 1894, Van Wouw donated the work to the State Museum. Short biography: Anton van Wouw was born on 26 December 1862 in Driebergen in the Netherlands. After school, Van Wouw began as a stucco worker in Delft where he learnt the art of sculpture. He studied at the Rotterdam Academy for Arts, but stopped his studies to join his father and brother in South Africa. After having a hard time as an artist in the early beginnings of his career of the then Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (South African Republic 1852-1902) Van Wouw was finally recognised for his work when Sammy Marks (1884-1920), a Lithuanian-born South African industrialist and financier, commissioned Van Wouw to create the famous Kruger Memorial, currently situated on Church Square in the centre of South Africa's Capital city Pretoria. From there, Van Wouw's art went from strength to strength creating over 10 large bronze monuments, as well as more than 100 other sculptures in his lifetime. Anton van Wouw passed away in Pretoria in 1945.