Arum Lilies

Arum Lilies by the South African artist Maggie Laubser (1886-1973) was painted in 1922. Arum Lilies or Zantedeschia is a genus of eight species of herbaceous, perennial, flowering plants in the family Araceae, native to southern Africa from South Africa north to Malawi. The genus has been introduced to all the continents except Antarctica. The painting was donated by Maggie Laubser in 1931 after the first exhibition at the University of Pretoria's MacFadyen Memorial Hall. Laubser was a pioneer for Expressionism and Fauvism in South Africa. Short biography: Maria Magdalena (Maggie) Laubser was born on the farm ‘Bloublommetjieskloof’ in the Malmesbury district in 1886. Laubser left South Africa to travel Europe in 1913. With the outbreak of the First World War, Laubser moved from The Netherlands to London where she attended formal art classes at the Slade School of Art from 1914 to 1919. During this period she took painting trips to the Lake District in England as well as Scotland and the Midlands where she painted on her own. Laubser returned to South Africa at the end of 1921 for about a year, after which she returned to Europe – this time to Germany where she lived in Berlin for two years from 1922 to 1924. Laubser returned permanently to South Africa in 1924 and held her first solo exhibition at the Argus Gallery in Cape Town. The artist continued to paint until her death at her home ‘Altyd Lig’ in the Strand in 1973.