Four successful instalments between 1982 and 1991, established The Cape Town Triennial as one of South Africa’s most established art exhibitions. Political turmoil during this period in South African history reflected in what is generally referred to as “Resistance Art”. Sociopolitical commentary gave powerful meaning to rising artistic voices while emerging artists established their visual practices inside this canon.
Tracings show part of researcher Richard ‘Ginger’ Townley Johnson’s (1911-1994) archive on southern African rock art. In the mid-70s, the Rembrandt van Rijn Art Foundation granted sponsorship to ‘Ginger’ who by then was retired to continue his various travels and explorations to trace rock art sites in Southern Africa.
Artists have been active in book production for centuries, but the artist’s book is a relatively new field of art production, dating back to the late 1960s. Book art straddles the worlds of books and art, and are generally associated with conventional paper codices that are conceptualised as works of art.
The retrospective of Albert Adams’ oeuvre spanned more than fifty years and highlighted his contribution as an exceptional artist and humanist. His remarkable, monumental triptychs, South Africa 1959, dubbed his “Guernica”, along with South Africa 1958-59 (Deposition), which features a crucified black Christ, was central to this exhibition. His self-portraits, a recurring theme in his work, displayed an agitated urgency and multi-levelled self-reflection.
In 2019, the Rupert Art Foundation and the Rupert Museum in Stellenbosch launched the Social Impact Arts Prize 2020, calling for great creative ideas with the potential to make an impact on the communities within which they are created. Following a rigorous and inspiring assessment of the 123 submissions by an international panel of judges, these six projects have been announced as finalists, and three were awarded.
Artist JH Pierneef’s most acclaimed public commission was completed between 1929 and 1932 The Johannesburg Station Panels have been characterised as the epitome of the South African landscape genre. Since 2002 the complete set of thirty two panels - twenty eight landscape and four tree scenes, is on long term loan from the TRANSNET Foundation to the Rupert Art Foundation and have also been exhibited in the Jan Rupert Centre in Graaff-Reinet.
Portraiture captures the relationship between sitter and artist in holding the likeness of the sitter. In figurative studies, the artist strives to understand human form and gestures.
“She is like family”, “Sy was soos ‘n ma vir my”, “Sy’s nader aan my as ‘n suster”. Ena Jansen, acclaimed author, takes an interdisciplinary look at the history of domestic workers in South African literature and the visual arts, as explored in this exhibition.
Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef (1886-1957), a notable landscape artist in the mediums of painting and printmaking was commissioned in 1929 to paint places of natural beauty and historical value for display at the Johannesburg train station.
