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www.thevillagenews.co.za
20 November 2019
Historic artists' link with Hermanus Writer Dr Robin Lee
Terence McCaw
S
everal well-known artists of the 20th century were inspired by the village charm and scenic beauty of Hermanus. One of them was the internationally recognised South African artist, Martinus (Tinus) de Jongh. Although based in the Cape, he had easy access to Hermanus and stayed here often in the 1930s. After each painting holiday, it was de Jongh’s practice to hold an exhibition of his work in The Marine Hotel, where he was staying, and sell paintings to visitors and locals. One year he must have had a wonderful time, as he presented Joey Luyt with a gift in the shape of a painting of Montagu Pass. Tinus de Jongh was born in Amsterdam in 1885, the youngest of four children. He revealed artistic talent early on, and on completion of his schooling in 1900, he expressed a wish to make art his career. He spent the next two years studying decorative painting at the Ambachtsschool, where he learned the fundamentals of colour and paint mixing. Employing broad palette knife strokes, his early works are fastidiously detailed and somberly coloured portrayals of the canals and streets of Amsterdam. Landscape was de Jongh’s true métier, and the Dutch impressionists influenced his refined brushwork and subject choice. He started to receive critical attention as a young artist when one of his works was purchased by the Stedelijk Museum. In 1911, he married Maria Verhoef and, in due course, they had three children. He became well-known in a short time and even received attention from Queen Wilhelmina. He served in a civil defence unit during World War I, but suffered a severe illness and did not see military action. In 1921 the de Jongh family moved to South Africa and set up home in the town of Fish Hoek. They were persuaded to come to the country by
Etchings by Tinus de Jongh of a Voëlklip House (above) and the Marine Hotel (below). LEFT: Tinus de Jongh later on in his life. RIGHT: The Hawston Harbour in 1957 painted by Terence McCaw.
The seascapes and striking flowers attracted artists to Hermanus throughout the 20th century. Another one who came frequently and enjoyed the Hermanus view sites was Terence McCaw, who first visited as a young man in 1934. Joey Luyt remembers him clearly: Mrs John Garlick [owner of the department store Garlicks] telephoned me one day from Stellenbosch. Could we accommodate a struggling young artist with very little money? His name was Terence McCaw, and he was going to Gansbaai to paint the fishermen’s cottages there and then would like to spend some time in Hermanus.
Tinus’s brother who had emigrated a couple of years before. De Jongh plunged into painting local scenes in Cape Town, and these proved popular and sold well. He was commissioned by the Government to paint a view of the Houses of Parliament, which was later displayed in South Africa House in London. After a few years, he had saved the funds to buy a motor car and immediately set out on trips into the rural areas and began to focus on country scenes, especially mountains. But he switched subjects dramatically when the University of Cape Town commissioned a series of medical illustrations to be used in teaching. In 1933, the family travelled to the then Rhodesia, the Drakensburg and Durban, and de Jongh started the practice of presenting his works for sale in exhibitions at the venue where
the family was staying. However, he deliberately did not sell a portrait of a ‘Rickshaw Boy’, painted in Durban. He later exhibited this painting in Paris and London in 1934. Etching and print-making became a unique skill he developed and took to new heights. In Hermanus, he made etchings of The Marine Hotel, and a boarding house called Voëlkliphuis, which still stands in Voëlklip. From about 1938 his landscape painting of scenes in the Cederberg area revealed a much more colourful and impressionistic style. Today, de Jongh’s works are in the collections of the Pretoria Art Museum and the Durban Art Gallery in South Africa, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, among others. The artist died in Bloemfontein in 1942, and his reputation has continued to grow.
It was during the Season, but we managed to accommodate him by moving him from room to room as one became vacant between bookings. Later, in January, we were able to give him two rooms in the little cottage at Schoongezicht (the Luyt’s own house) that Harold Webb and his band had occupied over the Christmas and New Year holidays. Naturally, we gave Terence specially reduced rates, and he stayed with us for three months. Terence was saving to go overseas. His paintings in Hermanus sold well (we hung them on the ballroom walls), mainly to overseas and upcountry visitors, and by the time he left Hermanus, he had his fare to England. He was a charming, quiet young man, and we liked him very much. He gave me one of his paintings of an old ruin at Stellenbosch.
McCaw made the trip to London, and learned a great deal, attending the Central School and Heatherley’s School in London. He was also invited to exhibit at the Royal Waterclour Society. When he returned to Johannesburg, he joined a group known as the New Group. In 1938 he settled in Cape Town. In the years before the Second World War, he travelled extensively in West Africa, Spain and Italy, but was back in South Africa when World War II broke out. His reputation grew, and in 1943 he was appointed as the Official War Artist to the South African Forces. One critic recalls the following about his work in this position: His pictorial account of people, places and events along the battle fronts won him considerable applause and he returned home to an even more secure position in the public’s favour after he served as official War Artist in North Africa and Italy. McCaw had the approval of the people, and he settled into popular descriptive style, which, because so many other painters share its general features in the Cape, has come to be known as Cape Impressionism. In the 1950s McCaw took up residence in a house in Hout Bay and completed work for exhibitions each year from 1960 to 1975. After he died in 1978, a Retrospective Exhibition of his work was held in Johannesburg in 1980.
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