An Introduction to the University of Pretoria's South African Modernism Collection

The first work in the University of Pretoria's art collection was donated by the artist Henkdrik Pierneef in 1922.

Pierneef created a work of Paul Kruger, the last president of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek in 1915. He gave an edition of the work to the Universities first museum in 1922. This museum was in the Old Arts Building where the University of Pretoria Museums are housed today.

Professor Marthinus (Martin) Lourens du Toit (1897-1938) was a patron of South African visual art in the 1930s. Du Toit was head of the Department of Afrikaans Art and Culture at the University of Pretoria between 1931 and 1938. 

His vision for the new department included the ideal of exposing students to the work of South African artists. He believed in the future of the arts in South Africa and was passionate about establishing it in the 'North' of South Africa, particularly in Pretoria.

This form of academic support toward South African artists was rare in the 1930s, and took place during a decisive period regarding the politicised debates concerning ethnicity, modernism, nationalism, national art, and their relation to cultural identity and artistic expression.

Hendrik Pierneef donated the Wild Fig Tree in 1931 to the Art Department where it hung in one of the classrooms until 1935 at least. Pierneef became one of South Africa's most significant landscape painters.

Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef (1886-1957), was a South African landscape artist. Pierneef's distinctive geometric and modernist style is widely recognised. His work was greatly influenced by the beautiful South African landscape.

By exhibiting free of charge, many artists donated works at the end of the exhibition. The University used these exhibitions as starting point in building up a representative collection of South African art, which grew with donations from artists and art collectors.

Bertha Everard donated the painting Delville Wood Landscape with Crater after the Everard Group exhibited at the MacFadyen Memorial Hall on 19 October 1935.

Bertha Everard was a South African Landscape painter. She was greatly known for her expressionistic landscape paintings. Everard also took the initiative with her mother and sister to form the Everard Group in 1913, which is now known as the Everard Read Galleries.

Red Lion Square London was painted by the South African artist Gregoire Boonzaier (1909-2005). Boonzaier won first prize with this painting as an art student at the Central School of Art and Design in London. This work was donated after an exhibition at the MacFadyen Hall.

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.

An art collection fund and art committee only came into being during the 1940s, and from that time onwards, many more works were bought directly from artists, allowing the authorities to make specific choices. 

In 1945, the artist Maud Sumner held an exhibition at the MacFadyen Memorial Hall where she donated the work My Mother.

Maud Frances Eyston Sumner (1902-1985)was a South African artist, writer and poet. Sumner’s artwork depicted scenes of everyday life including interiors, still life compositions, and human figures. Sumner identified herself with French art in her early years. Spending most of her time in Paris, and influenced by her french teachers Desvallières and Denis. 

The University of Pretoria collected significant works by South Africa's most well known artists during this period, however there are still many gaps in the collection due to the collectors' preference at the time. 

Studio Interior, Yggdrasil by South African artist Alexis Preller (1911-1975) was donated to the University of Pretoria after exhibiting at the Macfadyen Memorial Hall in 1946. The painting was of the artist's interior of his studio which he named Yggdrasil. 

Alexis Preller (1911-1975) was a South African painter. He was greatly influenced by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Piero della Francesca, whos works he encountered at galleries and museums during his studies in Paris and his travels in Europe. Preller’s work can be defined in between surrealistic and expressionistic.

The MacFadyen Hall exhibitions seem to have offered a good reflection of the art scene in South Africa in the 1930s, in which the dialogue between modernism and conservatism, and national art, was being played out. Modernism had since influenced significant artists in the country.

For this work, Cilliers-Barnard was inspired by the Herero, an ethnic group from the South West Africa (today Namibia) and Botswana. The Herero are known for their colourful dress and headgear largely influenced by the German colonisers. Cilliers-Barnard donated this work after her exhibition at the University of Pretoria in the MacFadyen Memorial Hall in July 1949.

Bettie Cilliers Barnard (194-2010) was a South African artist, one of the first to complete her art studies at the University of Pretoria. She was well known for her abstraction as well as the rich symbolism of her work. 

In 1950 the University of Pretoria had it's first exhibition showcasing its art collection. At this time, the University was already privileged, owning artworks by some of the best Modernist artists in the country.

Walter Battiss (1906-1982) was a prolific South African artists working in all media from oils to prints to sculpture.  Battiss had a love for South African rock art and studied it intensively to write about it and to incorporate it in his later artworks. His travels to the Middle East and to various Greek islands were constant sources of inspiration for his artworks.

The South African artist Walter Battiss donated Boy with Bird to the collection in 1950. The painting of a young boy, dressed in a yellow sweater and holding a blue bird was typical to Battiss style then.  

The University of Pretoria's art collection has expanded since its first work in 1922 and it's first exhibition in 1931. The Art Committee is still acquiring works to add to this collection and filling gaps where needed, supporting young and established South African artists.

This work titled in Afrikaans as "Blikkiesdorp" (1940) or squatter camp is by the South African artist Gregoire Boonzaier (1909-2005). The work shows corrugated tin roof houses on the South African West Coast in the 1940s, as he held an enduring historic interest of the Cape regions of South Africa. It is assumed that the work might have been  donated after the exhibition in the MacFadyan Memorial Hall at the 1950 UP exhibition.