JOHANNES MEINTJES: ORIGINAL SIGNED AND DATED RARE WOODCUT (1947) FROM THE COLLECTION OF PETER CLARKE

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JOHANNES PETRUS MEINTJES (SOUTH AFRICAN ARTIST 1923-1980)

BOY WITH ARUM LILIES 1947 : GRAPHIC ART WORK

>> please scroll down for images on display - including four photographs from Meintjes' personal archives! <<

- Rare, original woodcut print from the personal art collection of the South African artist Peter Clarke.

- Execellent condition.

- Signed and dated (1947) in pencil in the margin.

- Unframed and mounted on white/cream board, taped along the margins of the board. 

- A beautiful and sensitive work of art.

- Sheet size : approximately 240 x 180 mm.

Provenance:

- From the personal art collection of Meintjes' art student, the South African artist Peter Clarke (acquisition note (1954) in pencil in his handwriting on the back).

- Also scroll down for a rare photograph from the year 1944 of Meintjes with art student Peter Clarke!

Fine art auctions (benchmarking of market value):

- This work sold for R13,440.00 on 28 October 2014 at Stephan Welz & Company, Cape Town (lot 112).

- The record for a graphic work by Meintjes is R148,500.00, achieved on 26 September 2011 at Strauss & Company, Cape Town. 

Postage and packaging (South Africa) : PostNet R100 and via courier R150. Alternatively, collection in person in Cape Town also possible.

Please add relevant amount to your payment & please arrange insurance as may be required.

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Johannes Petrus Meintjes (1923-1980) was a South African painter that enjoyed tremendous public support for his art since early age and also received international acclaim as an author later on. He is a well known historian and one of South Africa's most versatile artists. The fame he enjoyed as a 21 year old artist is unequalled in the South African history of art. Esmé Berman wrote in her authoritative Art & Artists of South Africa that 'the spectacular suddenness with which Johannes Meintjes catapulted to the headlines during the last years of WW2 is a phenomenon seldom equalled in SA cultural history. Before he was 22 years old the intense young artist enjoyed the kind of public adulation which was later reserved for youthful idols of the pop-music world'.

Johannes Meintjes died in 1980 and had established himself as a major South African painter and writer. Apart from numerous articles and smaller literary works, he had published 35 books, amongst them authoritative works on South African history. Some of his fictional works are considered of historical GLBT interest and early examples of South African gay writing.

Meintjes had painted more than a thousand canvases, produced dozens of sculptures and exhibited in all South Africa's major galleries - sometimes alone and sometimes in the company of artists such as Alexis Preller, JH Pierneef, Gerard Sekoto, Irma Stern, Maggie Laubser and Walter Battiss.

Meintjes' work reflects something of the naivety of the African artist… a dimension beyond the purely European and his canvases, painted with the knowledge born out of centuries of European experience, speak with the voice of Africa.

Meintjes once said: 'Mine is the vision…sprung from the soil of Africa and I have given it in a personal statement which may find a response in the heart and imagination of another generation.'

Below: Acquisition note ('1954' in Peter Clarke's handwriting) on the back:

Below: Johannes Meintjes (in 1944 at age 21), art lecturer at the SA College School with the young artist Peter Clarke (on his left)

Below: Johannes Meintjes (1947 at age 24) on the opening night of his exhibition at the Argus Gallery in Cape Town (June 1947), the year during which this woodcut was executed

Below : Johannes Meintjes' studio in Buitengracht Street, Cape Town 1949

Below : Johannes Meintjes in 1952 (exhibition in Port Elizabeth; front page of 'The Evening Post')

 The correct spelling of his surname is 'Johannes Meintjes' (and not 'Johannes Meintjies')