General HT Lukin

A photograph of a plaster of Paris bust of General HT Lukin sculpted in 1930 by the Dutch-born South African artist Anton van Wouw (1862-1945). Van Wouw was contracted to create a large full-length figure of Major General Henry Timson Lukin (1860-1925) on 25 July 1929 for the Gardens in Cape Town. The completed the plaster of the work which was photographed in Van Wouw's studio in May 1930, where the plaster bust was then shipped to The Netherlands to be cast in bronze. The sculpture was unveiled in the Public Gardens in Cape Town on 3 March 1932. Lukin was in command of the South African forces during the First World War (1914-1918) and this sculpture is also depicted at the Delville Wood memorial in France. 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 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 just after completing his largest work, a figure of Woman and Children for the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria.