Barbara Tyrrell: Three Tribal Prints (signed & numbered)

Barbara Tyrrell is an internationally recognized artist known for her detailed costume studies of the traditional dress of the tribal peoples of southern Africa.The artist was born on March 15th 1912 in KZN and died at Fishhoek in the Cape at the age of 103, on September 23rd, 2015. Her paintings in water colour, gouache and oils constitute one of the most important historical records of a world that was vanishing even as she worked. She always drew from life, which gave her work an integrity not found in the work of artists using secondary sources, such as photographs, as reference. Her father, who died while she was a small child, had occupied the post of assistant magistrate and later interpreter in the Department of Native Affairs in Zululand. Her grandfather was Frederick Fynney, interpreter and companion to the Zulu King Cetshwayo (1826 – 1884).