Potchefstroom

Potchefstroom is by the German / South African artist Ernst Karl (Erich) Mayer (1876-1960). This work is dated by the artist as being painted on 19 September 1925. This is of the same location in Potchefstroom as the painting "Outspan at Potchefstroom" painted by the artist in 1932. Mayer liked going to spots where people gathered as he could observe and paint everyday life in South Africa. Short Biography: Mayer was born in Karlsruhe in Germany in 1876, he immigrated to the Transvaal in 1898 to come and search his fortune. He however had a long and difficult road in the country. Just over a year after coming to the Transvaal, the South African War (1899-1902) broke out, and he joined the call to arms on the Boer side. Mayer was captured and sent to St. Helena Island as a Prisoner of War. This was first, of three periods Mayer spent in prison during a war. After the war, Mayer made a career mostly by painting small watercolours, usually iconic of the typical South African landscape. In the First World War (1914-1918) as well as the Second World War (1939-1945) Mayer was interred in a concentration camp due to his German heritage. Mayer passed away in 1960.