DISTANCIAS || Christa Zaat

Christa Zaat



Jacob Hendrik Pierneef (South African painter) 1886 - 1957
Drakensberg, 1951 
oil on canvas
65 x 86 cm. (25.59 x 33.88 in.)
signed and dated 'J.H.Pierneef.1951.' (lower left)
private collection

Catalogue Note Bonhams
"Far deeper...than the professional delight of the painter's eye in colour, form and line of the landscape, there lies hidden in Pierneef that filial feeling, that adoration of our ground; it is the secret flame that gives to his ripest works their intrinsic eloquence." (Grosskopf, p.23)

In the 1950s, Pierneef produced some of his most poetic landscapes employing a palette of sun-bleached, pastel colours. Looking at this painting, we are reminded of the words of Dr. Anton Hendriks, director of the Johannesburg Art Gallery from 1937-64:

"[Pierneef's] landscapes were different from anything seen in paint before. Baines, Oerder and others had painted the same scenes, but Pierneef saw them with new eyes. He created a new style out of this subject matter." (Grosskopf, p.101)

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Jacobus Hendrik (Henk) Pierneef (usually referred to as Pierneef) was a South African landscape artist, generally considered to be one of the best of the old South African masters. His distinctive style is widely recognised and his work was greatly influenced by the South African landscape.
Most of his landscapes were of the South African highveld, which provided a lifelong source of inspiration for him. Pierneef's style was to reduce and simplify the landscape to geometric structures, using flat planes, lines and colour to present the harmony and order in nature. This resulted in formalised, ordered and often-monumental view of the South African landscape, uninhabited and with dramatic light and colour.
Pierneef's work can be seen worldwide in many private, corporate and public collections, including the Africana Museum, Durban Art Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, King George VI Art Gallery, Pierneef Museum and the Pretoria Art Gallery.