Red Lion Square London

Red Lion Square London was painted by the South African artist Gregoire Boonzaier (1909-2005). Boonzaier travelled to England in 1932 along with fellow artists Frieda Lock and Terence McCaw where he trained at the Central School of Art and Design in London. In 1936, Boonzaier won first prize with the painting as an art student. During this time Boonzaier painted this work on Red Lion Square in Holborn London. In the centre of the painting at the back is Toye & Co a British jewellery and clothing factory founded in 1685. The work was donated by the artist after his 1936 exhibition at the MacFayden Memorial Hall at the University of Pretoria. Short Biography: Gregoire Johannes Boonzaier was born in 1909 in Newlands, Cape Town. He studied at the Heatherley School of Art in London. Boonzaier was a highly vocal artist about the history of the Bo-Kaap and District Six in Cape Town and was against the Group Areas Act of the 1950s. Boonzaier is seen as the father of the Cape Impressionism, a local stylistic form related to the western Impressionism school. His artworks range from still life paintings, landscapes and portraits and he often contributed the struggle against apartheid in his subject matter prolifically as a founder of the New Group in 1938 with other South African artists such as Walter Battiss, Lippy Lipschitz, Freida Lock and Terence McCaw. Boonzaier passed away in 2005 in Cape Town.