Woman

A pastel drawing, titled Portrait of a Women by the South African artist, Johanna Wassenaar (1896-1972). Wassenaar was known for her art studies and chosen subject to depict black people, including at times politicians. Short Biography: Johanna Cornelia du Toit (nee Wassenaar) was born in in the district Middelburg in today’s Mpumalanga Province of South Africa in 1896. She studied art in Vienna and in Munich as a student of Clement Fränkel (1872-1944). In 1920, she married FS du Toit a medical doctor and enrolled for art studies at the Technical College of the Witwatersrand in 1940. She studied portraiture, sculpture and ceramics. By 1951, she divorced and became a full time artist and art teacher. Wassenaar passed away on 11 April 1972 in Pretoria.