Cape Town, 11 October 2011

97 This striking pair of paintings featuring birds in the landscape, represents Maggie Laubser at her best. The strength of these works demonstrates her ability to absorb the tenets of Modernism, learnt through her association with the German Expressionists, and to apply them to creating a unique South African vision. Her abiding affinity with nature and her deep love of the South African soil and its rich birdlife are clearly evident in both paintings. The coastal landscape foregrounds a group of Lesser Flamingo ( Phoenicopterus minor ) or Kleinflamink distinguished from the Greater Flamingo by their brighter plumage with large expanses of deep crimson in the wings and dark red bills which appear black at long range. Given that their natural habitat is freshwater lakes, salt pans and estuaries, it’s likely that this is a West Coast scene. References to paintings of pink flamingos occur in correspondence dated April 16, 1929 between the artist and Bess Venter, indicating that Laubser had already visited Langebaan and adjacent coastal areas. 1 The lone Blue Crane ( Anthropoides paradise ) or Bloukraanvoël with its large head, long slender neck and trailing wing feathers surveys the landscape which is at once typically South African and a figment of the artist’s prodigious imagination. Clearly defined mountains, trees and clouds painted in large expanses of bright but harmonious colour convey Laubser’s palpable delight derived both from the experience of painting and from her spiritual engagement with the world around her. 1 Dalene Marais Maggie Laubser: her paintings, drawings and graphics, Perskor, 1994, p6. 156